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CAMP COURT AND SIEGE 



A NARRATIVE OF PERSONAL ADVENTURE AND 
OBSERVATION DURING TWO WARS 

1861-1865 1870-1871 



By WICKHAM HOFFMAN 

ASSISTANT ADJ.- GEN. U. S. VOLS. AND SECRETARY U. S. LEGATION AT PARIS 





NEW YORK HI 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1877 



Tf 



g(.o^ 



lAts^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S77, by 

HARPER & BROTHERS, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



/3' ( ^ Z 



TO 

The Hon. E. B. WASHBUENE, 

MINISTER OF THE U. S. AT PARIS, 

THESE PAGES ARE CORDIALLY DEDICATED, 

IN ADMIRATION OF THE STERLING QUALITIES OF MANHOOD 

DISPLAYED BY HIM DURING THE DARK DAYS OF THE SIEGE 

AND COMMUNE, AND IN RECOLLECTION OF MANY 

PLEASANT HOURS PASSED TOGETHER DURING 

AN OFFICIAL CONNECTION OF 

NEARLY SIX YEARS. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



Hatteras. — "Black Drink." — Fortress Monroe. — General Butler. — 
Small-pox. — " L'Isle des Chats." — Lightning. — Farragut. — Troops 
land. — Surrender of Forts Page 1 1 

CHAPTER II. 

New Orleans. — Custom-house. — Union Prisoners. — The Calaboose. — 
" Them Lincolnites." — The St. Charles. — " Grape-vine Telegraph." 
— New Orleans Shop-keepers. — Butler and Soule. — The Fourth 
Wisconsin. — A New Orleans Mob. — Yellow Fever 23 



CHAPTER III. 

Vicksburg. — River on Fire. — Baton Rouge. — Start again for Vicks- 
burg. — The Hartford. — The Canal. — Farragut. — Captain Craven. — 
The Arkansas. — Major Boardman. — The Arkansas runs the Gaunt- 
let. — Malaria 35 



CHAPTER IT. 

Sickness. — Battle of Baton Rouge. — Death of Williams. — " Fix Bay- 
onets !" — Thomas Williams. — His Body. — General T. W. Sherman. 
— Butler relieved. — General Orders, No. 10. — Mr. Adams and Lord 
Palmerston. — Butler's Style 4*7 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

T. W. Sherman. — Contrabands. — Defenses of New Orleans. — Ex- 
change of Prisoners. — ^Amenities in War. — Port Hudson. — Recon- 
noissance in Force. — The Fleet. — Our Left. — Assault of May 27th. 
— Sherman wounded. — Port Hudson surrenders Page 59 



CHAPTER VI. 
t 

Major-general Franklin. — Sabine Pass. — Collision at Sea. — March 

through Louisiana. — Rebel Correspondence. — "The Gypsy's Was- 
sail." — Rebel Women. — Rebel Poetry. — A Skirmish. — Salt Island. 
— Winter Chmate. — Banks's Capua. — Major Joseph Bailey 74 



CHAPTER Vn. 

Mistakes. — Affair at Mansfield. — Peach Hill. — Freaks of the Imagi- 
nation. — After Peach Hill. — General William Dwight. — Retreat to 
Pleasant Hill. — Pleasant Hill. — General Dick Taylor. — Taylor and 
the King of Denmark. — An Incident 87 



CHAPTER Vni. 

Low Water. — The Fleet in Danger. — We fall back upon Alexandria. 
— Things look Gloomy. — Bailey builds a Dam in ten Days. — Saves 
the Fleet. — A Skirmish, — Smith defeats Polignac. — Unpopularity 
of Foreign Officers. — A Novel Bridge. — Leave of Absence. — A 
Year in Virginia. — Am ordered again to New Orleans 98 

CHAPTER IX. 

Visit to Grant's Head-quarters. — His Anecdotes of Army Life. — 
Banks relieved. — Canby in Command. — Bailey at Mobile. — Death of 
Bailey. — Canby as a Civil Governor. — Confiscated Property. — Pro- 
poses to rebuild Levees. — Is stopped by Sheridan. — Canby appeals. 



CONTENTS. 



— Is sustained, but too late. — Levees destroyed by Floods. — Conflict 
of Jurisdiction. — Action of President Johnson. — Sheridan abolishes 
Canby's Provost Marshal's Department. — Canby asks to be recalled. 
— Is ordered to Washington. — To Galveston. — To Richmond. — To 
Charleston. — Is murdered by the Modocs. — His Character. Page 105 

CHAPTER X. 

The Writer appointed Assistant Secretary of Legation to Paris. — Pre- 
sented to the Emperor. — Court Balis. — Diplomatic Dress. — Opening 
of Corps Legislatif. — Opening of ParUament. — King of the Belgians. 
— Emperor of Austria. — King of Prussia. — Queen Augusta. — Em- 
peror Alexander. — Attempt to assassinate him. — Ball at Russian 
Embassy. — Resignation of General Dix 119 

CHAPTER XI. 

Washburne appointed Minister. — Declaration of War. — Thiers op- 
poses it. — The United States asked to protect Germans in France. 
— Fish's Instructions. — Assent of French Government given. — 
Paris in War-paint. — The Emperor opposed to War. — Not a Free 
Agent. — His Entourage. — Marshal Le Boeuf 134 

CHAPTER XIL 

Germans forbidden to leave Paris. — Afterward expelled. — Large 
Number in Paris. — Americans in Europe. — Emperor's Staff an In- 
cumbrance. — French Generals. — Their Rivalries. — False News from 
the Front. — Effect in Paris. — Reaction. — Expulsion of Germans. — 
Sad Scenes. — Washburne's Action. — Diplomatic Service. — Battle of 
Sedan. — Sheridan at Sedan 145 

CHAPTER Xni. 

Revolution of September 4th, ISYO. — Paris en Fete. — Flight of the 
Empress. — Saved by Foreigners. — Escapes in an English Yacht. — 



CONTENTS. 



Government of National Defense. — Trochu at its Head. — Jules Si- 
mon. — United States recognizes Republic. — Washburne's Address. — 
Favre's Answer. — Efforts for Peace. — John L. O'SuUivan. Page 159 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Belleville Demonstrates. — Radical Clubs. — Their Blasphemy and Vio- 
lence. — Unreasonable Suspicion. — Outrages. — Diplomatic Corps. — 
Some of them leave Paris. — Meeting of the Corps. — Votes not to 
Leave. — Embassadors and Ministers. — Right of Correspondence in 
a Besieged Place. — Commencement of Siege, September 19th. — Be- 
siegers and Besieged. — Advantages of Besieged IVO 

CHAPTER XV. 

Balloons. — Large Number dispatched. — Small Number lost. — Worth. 
— Carrier - pigeons. — Their Failure. — Their Instincts. — Times 
"Agony Column." — Correspondence. — Letters to Besieged. — Count 
Solms. — Our Dispatch-bag. — Moltke complains that it is abused. — 
Washburne's Answer. — Bismarck's Reply 182 



CHAPTER XVL 

Burnside's Peace Mission. — Sent in by Bismarck. — Interview with 
Trochu. — The Sympathetic Tear. — Question of Revictualment. — 
Failure of Negotiations. — Point of Vanity. — Flags of Truce. — 
French accused of Violation of Parole. — Question of the Francs- 
Tireurs. — Foreigners refused Permission to leave Paris. — Wash- 
burne insists. — Permission granted. — Departure of Americans. — 
Scenes at Creteil 196 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Mob seize Hotel de Ville. — "Thanksgiving" in Paris. — Prices of 
Food. — Paris Rats. — Menagerie Meat. — Horse-meat. — Eatable only 
as Mince. — Government Interference. — Sorties. — Are Failures. — 



CONTENTS. 



Le Bourget taken by French. — Retaken by Prussians. — French 
Naval Officers. — Belleville National Guard. — Their Poetry. — Blun- 
dering. — Sheridan's Opinion of German Army Page 207 

CHAPTER XVm. 

The National Guard. — Its Composition. — The American Ambulance. 
— Its Organization. — Its Success. — Dr. Swinburne, Chief Surgeon. 
— The Tent System. — Small Mortality. — Poor Germans in Paris. — 
Bombardment by Germans. — Wantonness of ArtiUery-men. — Bad 
News from the Loire. — "Le Plan Trochu." — St. Genevieve to ap- 
pear. — Vinoy takes Command. — Paris surrenders. — Bourbaki de- 
feated. — ^Attempts Suicide 221 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Election in France. — Terms of Peace. — Germans enter Paris. — Their 
Martial Appearance. — American Apartments occupied. — Wash- 
burne remonstrates. — Attitude of Parisians. — The Germans evac- 
uate Paris. — Victualing the City. — Aid from England and the 
United States. — Its Distribution. — Sisters of Charity 234 



CHAPTER XX. 

The Commune. — Murder of French Generals. — The National Guard of 
Order. — It disbands. — The Reasons. — Flight of the Government to 
Versailles. — Thiers. — Attempts to reorganize National Guard. — An 
American arrested by Commune. — Legation intervenes. — His Dis- 
charge. — His Treatment. — Reign of King Mob. — "■ Deinonstrations 
Pacijiquesy — Absurd Decrees of the Commune. — Destruction of the 
Vendome Column 243 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Diplomatic Corps moves to Versailles. — Journey there and back. — 
Life at Versailles. — German Princes. — Battle at Clamart. — Unbur- 

1* 



lo CONTENTS. 



ied Insurgents. — Bitterness of Class Hatred. — Its Probable Causes. 
• — United States Post-office at Versailles. — The Archbishop of Par- 
is. — Attempts to save his Life. — Washburne's Kindness to him. 
— Blanqui. — Archbishop murdered. — Ultramontanism. — Bombard- 
ment by Government. — My Apartment struck. — Capricious Effects 
of Shells. — Injury to Arch of Triumph. — Bass-reliefs of Peace and 
War Page 256 

CHAPTER XXn. 

Reign of Terror.— Family Quarrels. — The Alsacians, etc., claim Ger- 
man Nationality. — They leave Paris on our Passes. — Prisoners of 
Commune. — Priests and Nuns. — Fragments of Shells, — "Articles 
de Paris." — Fearful Bombardment of " Point du Jour." — Arrest of 
Cluseret. — Commune Proclamations. — Capture of Paris. — Troops 
enter by Undefended Gate. — Their Slow Advance. — Fight at the 
Tuileries Gardens. — Communist Women. — Capture of Barricades. — 
Cruelties of the Troops. — " Petroleuses." — Absurd Stories about 
them. — Public Buildings fired. — Destruction of Tuileries, etc., etc. 
— Narrow Escape of Louvre. — Treatment of Communist Prisoners. 
— Presents from Emperor of Germany 2V1 



CAMP, COUKT, AND SIEGE. 



CHAPTEE I. 

Hatteras. — "Black Drink." — Fortress Monroe. — General Butler. — 
Small-pox. — " L'Isle des Chats." — Lightning. — ^Farragut. — Troops 
land. — Surrender of Forts. 

In February, 1862, the writer of tlie following 
pages, an officer on tlie staff of Brigadier - general 
Thomas Williams, was stationed at Hatteras. Of all 
forlorn stations to which the folly and wickedness 
of the Rebellion condemned our officers, Hatteras 
was the most forlorn. It blows a gale of wind half 
the time. The tide runs through the inlet at the 
rate of ^ve miles an hour. It was impossible to un- 
load the stores for Burnside's expedition during 
more than three days of the week. After an easter- 
ly blow — and there are enough of them — the waters 
are so piled up in the shallow sounds between Hat- 
teras and the Main, that the tide ebbs without inter- 
mission for twenty-four hours. 



CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



The history of Hatteras is curious. There can 
be little doubt that English navigators penetrated 
into those waters long before the Pilgrims landed at 
Plymouth. But the colony was not a success. Of 
the colonists some returned to England ; others died 
of want. The present inhabitants of the island are 
a sickly, puny race, the descendants of Euglish con- 
victs. When Great Britain broke up her penal set- 
tlement at the Bermudas, she transported the most 
hardened convicts to Van Diemens Land ; those who 
had been convicted of minor offenses, she turned 
loose upon our coast. Here they intermarried ; for 
the inhabitants of the Main look down upon them as 
an inferior race, and will have no social intercourse 
with them. The effect of these intermarriages is 
seen in the degeneracy of the race. 

Until within a few years their principal occupation 
was wrecking. Hatteras lies on the direct route of 
vessels bound from the West Indies to Baltimore, 
Philadelphia, and I^ew York. Tlie plan adopted by 
these guileless natives to aid the storm in insuring 
a wreck was simple, but effective. There is a half- 
wild pony bred upon the island called " marsh pony." 
One of these animals was caught, a leg tied up Pa- 
rey fashion, a lantern slung to his neck, and the ani- 



BLACK drink:' 13 



mal driven along the beacli on a stormy night. The 
effect was that of a vessel riding at anchor. Other 
vessels approached, and were soon unpleasantly aware 
of the difference between a ship and a marsh pony. 

The dwelhngs bear witness to the occupation of 
their owners. The fences are constructed of ships' 
knees and planks. In their parlors you may see on 
one side a rough board door, on the other an exqui- 
sitely finished rose-wood or mahogany cabin door, 
with silver or porcelain knobs. Contrast reigns ev- 
erywhere. 

But the place is not without its attractions to the 
botanist. A wild vine, of uncommon strength and 
toughness, grows abundantly, and is used in the 
place of rope. The iron -tree, hard enough to turn 
the edge of the axe, and heavy as the metal from 
which it takes its name, is found in abundance, and 
the tea-tree, from whose leaves the inhabitants draw 
their tea when the season has been a bad one for 
wrecks. This tea-tree furnishes the "black drink," 
which the Florida Indians drank to make themselves 
invulnerable. They drank it with due religious cer- 
emonies till it nauseated them, when it was supposed 
to have produced the desired effect. What a pity 
that we can not associate some such charming super- 



14 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

stition with the maladie de mer ! It would so com- 
fort us in our affliction ! 

But we were not to stay long on this enchanted 
isle. Butler had organized his expedition against 
!N"ew Orleans, and it was now ready to sail. He had 
appKed for Thomas Williams, who had been strongly 
recommended to him by Weitzel, Kenzel, and other 
regular officers of his staff. Early in March we re- 
ceived orders to report to Butler at Fortress Monroe. 
We took one of those rolling tubs they call " propel- 
lers," which did the service between the fortress and 
Hatteras for the Quartermaster's Department ; and, 
after nearly rolling over two or three times, we reach- 
ed Old Point. Here we found the immense steamer 
the Constitution^ loaded with three regiments, ready 
to sail. Williams had hoped to have two or three 
days to run North and see his wife and children, 
whom he had not seen for months. But with him 
considerations of duty were before all others. He 
thought that three regiments should be commanded 
by a brigadier, and he determined to sail at once. 
It was a disappointment to us all. To him the loss 
was irreparable. He never saw his family again. 

It has always appeared to me that General Butler 
has not received the credit to which he is entitled 



GENERAL BUTLER. 15 

for the capture of New Orleans. Without liim l!^ew 
Orleans would not have been taken in 1862, and a 
blow inflicted upon the Confederacy, which the Lon- 
don Times characterized as the heaviest it had yet 
received — "almost decisive." The writer has no 
sympathy with General Butler's extreme views, and 
no admiration io^\ns> j^oteges ; but he was cognizant 
of the I^ew Orleans expedition from its inception, 
he accompanied it on the day it set sail, he landed 
with it in New Orleans, he remained in that city or 
its neighborhood during the whole of Butler's com- 
mand ; and a sense of justice compels him to say that 
Butler originated the expedition, that he carried it 
through, under great and unexpected difficulties, 
that he brought it to a successful termination, and 
that his government of the city at that time, and un- 
der the peculiar circumstances, was simply admirable. 
It is not perhaps generally known that it was But- 
ler who urged this enterprise upon the President. 
He was answered that no troops could be spared; 
M'Clellan wanted them all for his advance upon 
Richmond. Butler thereupon offered to raise the 
troops himself, provided the Government would 
give him three old regiments. The President con- 
sented. The troops were raised in New England, 



1 6 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

and three old regiments — the Fourth Wisconsin, 
the Sixth Michigan, and the Twenty -first Indiana 
— designated to accompany them. At the last mo- 
ment M'Clellan opposed the departure of the "West- 
ern troops, and even applied for the " New England 
Division." It was with some difficulty that, appeal- 
ing to the President, and reminding him of his 
promise, Butler was able to carry out the design for 
which the troops had been raised. 

We sailed from Old Point on the 6th of March 
with the three regiments I have named. We num- 
bered three thousand souls in all on board. If any 
thing were wanting at this day to prove the effica- 
cy of vaccination, our experience on board that ship 
is sufficient. We took from the hospital a man who 
had been ill with the small-pox. He was supposed 
to be cured. Two days out, his disease broke out 
again. The men among whom he lay were packed 
as close as herring in a barrel, yet but one took the 
disease. They had all been vaccinated within sixty 
days. I commend this fact to the attention of those 
parish authorities in England who still obstinately 
refuse to enforce the Vaccination Act. 

Eive days brought us, in perfect health, to Ship 
Island. Here was another Hatteras, w^ith a milder 



ISLE OF cats:' 17 



climate, and no " black drink ;" a low, sandy island 
in the Gulf, off Mobile. This part of the Gulf of 
Mexico was discovered and settled by the French. 
They landed on Ship Island, and called it "L'Isle 
des Chats," from the large number of raccoons they 
found there. Not being personally acquainted with 
that typical American, they took him for a species of 
cat, and named the island accordmgly. From Ship 
Island and the adjacent coast, which they settled, the 
French entered Lake Borgne and Lake Pontchar- 
train, and so up the Amite Kiver in their boats. 
They dragged their boats across the short distance 
which separates the upper waters of the Amite from 
the Mississippi, embarked upon the " Father of Wa- 
ters," and sailed down the stream. Here they play- 
ed a trick upon John Bull; for, meeting an En- 
glish fleet coming up, the first vessels that ever en- 
tered the mouths of the Mississippi, they boarded 
•them, claimed to be prior discoverers, and averred 
that they had left their ships above. There exist- 
ed in those days an understanding among maritime 
nations that one should not interfere with the prior 
discoveries of another. The English thereupon turn- 
ed, and the spot, a short distance below New Orleans, 
is to this day called '' English Turn." 



l8 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

We remained at the "Isle of Cats" about six 
weeks — the life monotonous enough. The beach 
offered a great variety of shell-fish, devil-fish, horse- 
shoes, and sea-horses. An odd thing was the abun- 
dance of fresh, pure water. Dig a hole two feet 
deep anywhere in the sand on that low island, ris- 
ing scarcely five feet above the sea, and in two hours 
it was filled with fresh water. After using it a 
week, it became brackish ; when all it was necessary 
to do was to dig another hole. 

When on Ship Island, I witnessed a curious freak 
of lightning. One night we had a terrible thunder- 
storm, such as one sees only iix those southern lati- 
tudes. In a large circular tent, used as a guard-tent, 
eight prisoners were lying asleep, side by side. The 
sentry stood leaning against the tent pole, the butt 
of the musket on the ground, the bayonet against 
his shoulder. The lightning struck the tent -pole, 
leaped to the bayonet, followed down the barrel, 
tearing the stock to splinters, but only slightly stun- 
ning the sentry. Thence it passed along the ground, 
struck the first prisoner, killing him ; passed through 
the six inside men without injury to them ; and off 
by the eighth man, killing him. 

Finally, the expedition was complete. Stores, 



FARE A GUT. IQ 



guns, horses, all had arrived. Butler became impa- 
tient for the action of the navy. He went to the 
South-west Pass, where Farragut's fleet was lying, 
and urged his advance. Farragut replied that he 
had no coal. Butler answered that he would give 
him what he wanted, and sent him fifteen hundred 
tons. He had had the foresight to ballast his sail- 
ing ships with coal, and so had an ample supply. A 
week passed, and still the ships did not ascend the 
river. Again Butler went to the Pass, and again 
Farragut said that he had not coal enough — that 
once past the forts, he might be detained on the 
river, and that it would be madness to make the at- 
tempt unless every ship were filled up with coal. 
Once again Butler came to his aid, and gave him 
three thousand tons. "We were naturally surprised 
that so vital an expedition should be neglected by 
the Navy Department. The opinion was pretty 
general among us that the expedition was not a fa- 
vorite with the Department, and that they did not 
anticipate any great success from it. They were 
quite as surprised as the rest of the world when 
Farragut accomplished his great feat. 

At length all was ready. The troops were em- 
barked, and lay off the mouth of the river, waiting 



20 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

for the action of the fleet. Farragut, after an idle 
bombardment of three days by the mortar -boats, 
which he told us he had no confidence in, but which 
he submitted to in deference to the opinions of the 
Department and of Porter (the firing ceased, by-the- 
way, when it had set fire to the wooden barracks in 
Fort Jackson, and might have done some good if 
continued), burst through the defenses, silenced the 
forts, and ascended the river. It is not my prov- 
ince to describe this remarkable exploit. Its effect 
was magical. An exaggerated idea prevailed at that 
time of the immense superiority of land batteries 
over ships. One gun on shore, it was said, was equal 
to a whole ship's battery. The very small results ob- 
tained by the united English and French fleets dur- 
ing the Crimean war were quoted in proof. Those 
magnificent squadrons effected scarcely any thing, 
for the capture of Bomarsund was child's play to 
them. The English naval officers, proud of their 
service and its glorious history, were delighted to 
find that, when daringly led, ships could still do 
something against land batteries, and all England 
rang with Farragut's exploit. 

The part played by the army in this affair was mi- 
nor, but still important. Our engineer officers, who 



SURRENDER OF FORTS. 



had assisted in building forts St. Philip and Jack- 
son, knew the ground well. Under their guidance 
we embarked, first in light-draught gun-boats, then 
in barges, and made our way through the shallow 
waters of the Gulf, and up the bayou, till we landed 
at Quarantine, between Fort St. Phihp and the city, 
cutting off all communication between them. As, in 
the stillness of an April evening, we made our slow 
way up the bayou amidst a tropical vegetation, fes- 
toons of moss hanging from the trees and drooping 
into the water, with the chance of being fired on at 
any moment from the dark swamp on either side, 
the effect upon the imagination was striking, and the 
scene one not easily forgotten. 

Farragut had passed up the river, but the forts 
still held out, and the great body of the troops was 
below them. When, however, they found them- 
selves cut off from any chance of succor, the men in 
Fort St. Philip mutinied, tied their officers to the 
guns, and surrendered. Fort Jackson followed the 
example. No doubt our turning movement had has- 
tened their surrender by some days. I once suggest- 
ed to. Sutler that we had hastened it by a week. "A 
month, a month, sir," he replied. 

It was here they told us that the United States 



2 2 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

flag had been hauled down from the Mint by a mob 
headed by that scoundrel Mumford, and dragged 
through the mud. I heard Butler swear by all that 
was sacred, that if he caught Mumford, and did not 
hang him, might he be hanged himself. He caught 
him, and he kept his oath There never was a wiser 
act. It quieted New Orleans like a charm. The 
mob, who had assembled at the gallows fully expect- 
ing to hear a pardon read at the last moment, and 
prepared to create a riot if he were pardoned, slunk 
home like whipped curs. 



NEW ORLEANS. 23 



CHAPTEE II. 

New Orleans. — Custom-house. — Union Prisoners. — The Calaboose. — 
" Them Lincolnites."— The St. Charles.—" Grape-vine Telegraph." 
— ^New Orleans Shop-keepers. — Butler and Soule. — The Fourth 
Wisconsin. — ^A New Orleans Mob. — Yellow Fever. 

Ox the evening of the 1st of May, 1862, the lead- 
ing transports anchored off the city. Butler sent for 
Williams, and ordered him to land at once. "Wil- 
liams, like the thorough soldier he was, proposed to 
wait till morning, when he would have daylight for 
the movement, and when the other transports, with 
our most reliable troops, would be up. " N^o, sir," 
said Butler, " this is the 1st of May, and on this day 
we must occupy New Orleans, and the first regiment 
to land must be a Massachusetts regiment." So the 
orders were issued, and in half an hour the Thirty- 
first Massachusetts Volunteers and the Sixth Massa- 
chusetts Battery set foot in ^N'ew Orleans. 

As we commenced our march, Williams saw the 
steamer Dicma coming up with six companies of the 
Fourth Wisconsin. He ordered a halt, and sent me 



24 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

with instructions for them to land at once, and fall 
into the rear of the column. I passed through the 
mob without difficulty, gave the orders, and we re- 
sumed our march. The general had directed that 
our route should be along the levee, where our right 
was protected by the gun-boats. Presently we found 
that the head of the column was turning up Julia 
Street. Williams sent to know why the change had 
been made. The answer came back that Butler was 
there, and had given orders to pass in front of the 
St. Charles Hotel, while the band played " Yankee 
Doodle," and " Picayune Butler's come to Town," if 
they knew it. They did not know it, unfortunately, 
so we had one unbroken strain of the martial air of 
" Yankee Doodle " all the way. 

Arrived at the Custom-house late in the evening, 
we found the doors closed and locked. Williams 
said to me, " What would you do ?" " Break the 
doors open," I replied. The general, who could not 
easily get rid of his old, regular-army habits, ordered 
" Sappers and miners to the front." No doubt the 
sappers and miners thus invoked would have speed- 
ily appeared had we had any, but two volunteer reg- 
iments and a battery of light artillery'were the ex- 
tent of our force that night. I turned to the adju- 



THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 25 

tant of tlie Fourth Wisconsin, and asked if he had any 
axes in his regiment. He at once ordered uj) two 
or three men. We found the weakest-looking door, 
and attacked it. As we were battering it in, the ma- 
jor of the Thirt^'-first came up, and took an axe from 
one of the men. Inserting the edge in the crack 
near the lock, he pried it gently, and the door flew 
open. I said, " Major, you seem to understand this 
sort of thing." He replied, " Oh ! this isn't the first 
door I have broken open, by a long shot. I was once 
foreman of a fire-company in Buffalo." 

We entered the building with great caution, for 
the report had been spread that it was mined. The 
men of the Fourth Wisconsin had candles in their 
knapsacks ; they always had every thing, those fel- 
lows ! We soon found the meter, turned the gas on, 
and then proceeded to make ourselves comfortable 
for the night. I established myself in the postmas- 
ter's private room — the Post-ofiice w^as in the Cus- 
tom-house — with his table for my bed, and a package 
of rebel documents for a pillow. I do not remem- 
ber what my dreams were that night. We took the 
letters from the boxes to preserve them, and piled 
them in a corner of my room. They were all sub- 
sequently delivered to their respective addresses. 

2 



2 6 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

Pretty well tired out with the labor and excite- 
ment of the day, I was just making myself tolerably 
comfortable for the night, when the officer of the 
day reported that a woman urgently desired to see 
the general on a matter of life or death. She was 
admitted. She told us that her husband was a 
Union man, that he had been arrested that day and 
committed to the " Calaboose," and that his life was 
in danger. The general said to her, " My good wom- 
an,! will see to it in the morning." " Oh, sir," she 
replied, " in the morning he will be dead ! They 
will poison him." We did not believe much in the 
poison story, but it was evident that she did. Wil- 
liams turned to me, and said, " Captain, have you a 
mind to look into this?" Of course I was ready, 
and ordering out a company of the Fourth Wis- 
consin, and asking Major Boardman, a daring offi- 
cer of that regiment, to accompany me, I started for 
the Calaboose, guided by the woman. The streets 
were utterly deserted. Nothing was heard but the 
measured tramp of the troops as we marched along. 
Arrived at the Calaboose, I ordered the man I was 
in search of to be brought out. I questioned him, 
questioned the clerk and the jailer, became satisfied 
that he was arrested for political reasons alone, or- 



UNION PRISONERS. 27 

dered his release, and took him with me to the Cus- 
tom-house, for he was afraid to return home. Being 
on the spot, it occurred to me that it would be as 
well to see if there were other political prisoners in 
the prison. I had the books brought, and examined 
the entries. At last I thought I had discovered an- 
other victim. The entry read, " Committed as a sus- 
picious character, and for holding communication with 
Picayune Butler's troops." I ordered the man before 
me. The jailer took down a huge bunch of keys, 
and I heard door after door creaking on its hinges. 
At last the man was brought out. I think I never 
saw a more villainous countenance. I asked him 
what he was committed for ? He evidently did not 
recognize the Federal uniform, but took me for a 
Confederate officer, and replied that he was arrested 
for talking to ^' them Lincolnites." I told the jail- 
er that I did not want that man — that he might lock 
him up again. 

Having commenced the search for political prison- 
ers, I thought it well to make thorough work of it ; 
so I inquired if there were other prisons in the city. 
There was one in the French quarter, nearly two 
miles off; so we pursued our weary and solitary 
tramp through the city. My men evidently did not 



CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



relish it. The prison was quiet, locked up for the 
night. We hammered away at the door till we got 
the officers up ; went in, examined the books, found 
no entries of commitments except for crime; put 
the officers on their written oaths that no one was 
confined there except for crime ; and so returned to 
our Post-office beds. 

The next day was a busy one. Early in the 
morning I went to the St. Charles Hotel to make 
arrangements for lodging the general and his staff. 
With some difficulty I got in. In the rotunda of 
that fine building sat about a dozen rebels, looking 
as black as a thunder - cloud. I inquired for the 
proprietor or clerk in charge, and a young man step- 
ped forward : " Impossible to accommodate us ; hotel 
closed; no servants in the house." I said, "At all 
events, I will see your rooms." Going into one of 
them, he closed the door and whispered, " It would 
be as much as my life is worth, sir, to offer to ac- 
commodate you here. I saw a man knifed on Canal 
Street yesterday for asking a naval officer the time 
of day. But if you choose to send troops and open 
the hotel by force, why, we will do our best to make 
you comfortable." Returning to the rotunda, I 
found Lieutenant Biddle, who had accompanied me 



NEW ORLEANS SHOP-KEEPERS. 29 

— one of the general's aids — engaged in a hot dis- 
cussion with our rebel friends. I asked him " What 
use in discussing these matters ?" and, turning to the 
rebs, with appropriate gesture said, " We've got you, 
and we mean to hold you." " That's the talk," they 
replied ; " we understand thatP They told us that 
the rebel army was in sight of Washington, and that 
John Magruder's guns commanded the Capitol. 
Why they picked out Magruder particularly, I can 
not say. This news had come by telegraph. We 
used to call the rebel telegraphic lines " the grape- 
vine telegraph," for their telegrams were generally 
circulated with the bottle after dinner. 

The shop-keepers in E^ew Orleans, when we first 
landed there, were generally of the opinion of my 
friend the hotel -clerk. A naval officer came to us 
one morning at the Custom-house, and said that the 
commodore wanted a map of the river ; that he had 
seen the very thing, but that the shop-keeper refused 
to sell it, intimating, however, that if he were com- 
pelled to sell it, why then, of course, he couldn't help 
himself. We ordered out a sergeant and ten men. 
The officer got his map, and paid for it. 

But Butler was not the man to be thwarted in 
this way. Finding this jpaHi pris on the part of 



30 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

tlie shop-keepers, lie issued an order that all shops 
must be opened on a certain day, or that he should 
put soldiers in, and sell the goods for account "of 
whom it might concern." On the day appointed 
they were all opened. So, too, with the newspapers. 
They refused to print his proclamation. An order 
came to us to detail half a dozen printers, and send 
them under a staff officer to the office of the True 
Delta, and print the proclamation. We soon found 
the men. From a telegraph - operator to a printer, 
bakers, engine-drivers, carpenters, and coopers, we 
had representatives of all the trades. This was in 
the early days of the war. Afterward the men 
were of an inferior class. The proclamation was 
printed, and the men then amused themselves by 
getting out the paper. Next morning it appeared 
as usual; this was enough. The editor soon came 
to terms, and the other journals followed suit. 

On the 2d of May Butler landed and took quar- 
ters at the St. Charles. There has been much idle 
gossip about attempts to assassinate him, and his 
fears of it. In regard to the latter, he landed in 
IN'ew Orleans, and drove a mile to his hotel, with 
one staff officer, and one armed orderly only on the 
box. When his wife arrived in the city, he rode 



BUTLER AND SOULE. 31 

with one orderly to the levee, and there, surrounded 
by the crowd, awaited her landing. As regards the 
former, we never heard of any well - authenticated 
attempt to assassinate him, and I doubt if any was 
ever made. 

That afternoon Butler summoned the municipal 
authorities before him to treat of the formal sur- 
render of the city. They came to the St. Charles, 
accompanied by Pierre Soule as their counsel. A 
mob collected about the hotel, and became tur- 
bulent. Butler was unprotected, and sent to the 
Custom-house for a company of "Massachusetts" 
troops. The only Massachusetts troops there were 
the Thirty -first, a newly raised regiment. They 
afterward became excellent soldiers, but at that time 
they were very young and very green. It so hap- 
pened, too, that the only company available was 
composed of the youngest men of the regiment. 
They were ordered out. The officer in charge did 
not know the way to the St. Charles. ISTo guide 
was at hand, so I volunteered to accompany them. 
We drew the troops up on Common Street, and I 
entered the hotel to report them to Butler. I found 
him engaged in a most animated discussion with 
Soule. Both were able and eloquent men, but 



32 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

Butler undoubtedly got the better of the argument. 
Perhaps the fact that he had thirteen thousand bay- 
onets to back his opinions gave point to his remarks. 
Interrupting his discourse for a moment only, he 
said, "Draw the men up round the hotel, sir; and 
if the mob make the slightest disturbance, fire on 
them on the spot," and went on with the discussion. 
Keturning to the street, I found the mob apostro- 
phizing my youthful soldiers with, "Does your 
mother know you're out V and like popular wit. It 
struck me that the inquiry was well addressed. I 
felt disposed to ask the same question. I reported 
the matter to Williams, and he thought that it would 
be well to counteract the effect. That evening he 
sent the band of the Fourth Wisconsin to play in 
front of the St. Charles, with the whole regiment, 
tall, stalwai-t fellows, as an escort. In a few minutes 
the mob had slunk away. An officer heard one 
gamin say to another, "Those are Western men, 

and they say they do fight like h ." One of the 

officers told me that his men's fingers itched to fire. 

I suppose that all mobs are alike, but certainly the 
New Orleans mob was as cowardly as it was brutal. 
When we first occupied the Custom-house, they col- 
lected about us, and annoyed our sentries seriously. 



A NEW ORLEANS MOB. ZZ 

The orders were to take no notice of wliat was said, 
but to permit no overt act. I was sitting one day in 
my office, the general out, when Captain Bailey, the 
officer who distinguished himself so much afterward 
in building the Red River dam — and a gallant fel- 
low he was — rushed in, and said, "Are we to stand 
this r I said, " What's the matter, Bailey T He re- 
plied that " One of those d — d scoundrels has taken 
his quid from his mouth, and thrown it into the sen- 
try's face." I said, " Ko ; I don't think that w^e are 
to stand that : that seems to me an ^ overt act.' Ar- 
rest him." Bailey rushed out, called to the guard to 
follow him, and, jumping into the crowd, seized the 
fellow by the collar, and jerked him into the lines. 
The guard came up and secured him. The mob fell 
back and scattered, and never troubled us from that 
day. The fellow went literally down upon his 
knees, and begged to be let off. We kept him lock- 
ed up that night, and the next day discharged him. 
He laid it all to bad whisky. 

As the course of this narrative will soon carry the 
writer from New Orleans into the interior, he takes 
this opportunity to say that he has often been as- 
sured by the rebel inhabitants, men and women of 
position and character, that never had IN^ew Orleans 



34 CAxMF, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

been so well governed, so clean, so orderly, and so 
healthy, as it was under Butler. He soon got rid of 
the "Plug-uglies" and other ruffian bands: some 
he sent to Fort Jackson, and others into the Confed- 
eracy. There was no yellow fever in New Orleans 
while we held it, showing as plainly as possible that 
its prevalence or its absence is simply a question of 
quarantine. (Butler had sworn lie would hang the 
health officer if the fever got up.) Before we ar- 
rived there, the "back door," as it was called — the 
lake entrance to the city — was always open, and for 
five hundred dollars any vessel could come up. In 
1861, when our blockade commenced, and during the 
whole of our occupation, yellow fever was unknown. 
In 1866 we turned the city over to the civil author- 
ities. That autumn there were a few straggling 
cases, and the following summer the fever was viru- 
lent. 



VICKSBURG, 35 



CHAPTER III. 

Vicksburg. — River on Fire. — Baton Rouge. — Start again for Vieks- 
burg. — The Hartford. — The Canal. — Farragut. — Captain Craven. — 
The Arhamas. — Major Boardman. — The Arkansas runs the Gaunt- 
let. — Malaria. 

Admiral Fakragut was anxious, after the capture 
of E^ew Orleans, to proceed at once against Mobile. 
I heard him say that, in the panic excited by the 
capture of New Orleans, Mobile w^ould fall an easy 
prey. The Government, however, for political as 
well as military reasons, was anxious to open the 
Mississippi. Farragut was ordered against Vicks- 
burg, and "Williams, with two regiments and a bat- 
tery, w^as sent to accompany and support him. 
When one reflects upon the great strength of Vicks- 
burg, and the immense resources it afterward took 
to capture it, it seems rather absurd to have sent us 
against it with two regiments and a battery. The 
excursion, however, if it is to be looked upon in this 
light, was delightful. We had two fine river boats. 
The plantations along the banks were in the highest 
state of cultivation; the young cane, a few inches 



36 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

above the ground, of the most lovely green. Indeed, 
I know no more beautiful green than that of the 
young sugar-cane. Our flag had not been seen in 
those parts for over a year, and the joy of the ne- 
groes when they had an opportunity to exhibit it 
without fear of their overseers was quite touching. 
The river was very high, and as we floated along 
we were far above the level of the plantations, and^ 
looked down upon the negroes at work, and into the 
open windows of the houses. The effect of this to 
one imused to it — the water above the land — was 
very striking. Natchez, a town beautifully situated 
on a high bluff, was gay with the inhabitants who 
had turned out to see us. . The ladies, with their 
silk dresses and bright parasols, and the negro wom- 
en, with their gaudy colors, orange especially, which 
they affect so much, and which, by-the-way, can be 
seen at a greater distance than any other color I 
know of. ■ 

One often hears of "setting a river on fire," met- 
aphorically speaking: I have seen it done literally. 
The Confederate authorities had issued orders to 
burn the cotton along the banks to prevent its fall- 
ing into our hands. But as -the patriotism of the 
owners naturally enough needed stimulating, vigi- 



HOLDING A COUNCIL. 37 

lance committees were organized, generally of those 
planters whose cotton was safe at a distance. These 
men preceded us as we ascended the river; and 
burned their neighbors' cotton with relentless patri- 
otism. The burning material was thrown into the 
stream, and floated on the surface a long time before 
it was extinguished. At night it was a very beauti- 
ful sight to see the apparently flaming water. We 
had to exercise some care to steer clear of the burn- 
ing masses. 

Arrived opposite Yicksburg, we boarded the flag- 
ship to consult for combined operations. We found 
Farragut holding a council of his captains, consider- 
ing the feasibility of passing the batteries of Yicks- 
burg as he had passed the forts. We apologized for 
our intrusion, and were about to withdraw, when he 
begged us to stay, and, turning to Williams, he said, 
" General, my officers oppose my running by Yicks- 
burg as impracticable. Only one supports me. So 
I must give it up for the present. In ten days they 
will all be of my opinion ; and then the difficulties 
will be much greater than they are now." It turned 
out as he had said. In a few days they were nearly 
all of his opinion, and he did it. 

But we found no dry place for the soles of our 



38 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

feet. "The water was down," as the Scotchmen 
say (down from the hills), and the whole Louisiana 
side of the river was flooded. It would have been 
madness to land on the Yicksburg side with two 
regiments only. Nothing could be done, and we 
returned to Baton Rouge, where, finding a healthy 
and important position, a United States arsenal, and 
Union men who claimed our protection, Williams 
determined to remain and await orders. 

Here cotton was offered us, delivered on the levee, 
at three cents a pound. It was selling at one dollar 
in New York. I spoke to Williams about it, and he 
said that there was no law against any officer specula- 
ting in cotton or other products of the country (one 
was subsequently passed), but that he would not have 
any thing to do with it, and advised me not to. I 
followed his advice and example. A subsequent 
post-commander did not. He made eighty thousand 
dollars out of cotton, and then went home and was 
made a brigadier-general ; I never knew why. 

But the Government was determined to open the 
river at all hazards. Farragut was re -enforced. 
Butler w^as ordered to send all the troops he could 
spare. Davis was ordered down with the Upper 
Mississippi fleet. Early in June we started again 



THE '' HARTFORD r 39 

for Yicksburg, with six regiments and two batteries. 
It was a martial and beautiful sight to see the long 
line of gun-boats and transports following each other 
in Indian file at regular intervals. Navy and army 
boats combined, we numbered about twenty sail — 
if I may apply that w^ord to steamers. On our way 
up, the flag - ship, the famous Hartford^ was nearly 
lost. She grounded on a bank in the middle of the 
river, and with a falling stream. Of course there 
was the usual talk about a rebel pilot ; but no vessel 
with the draught of the HmtfoTd^ a sloop-of-war, had 
ever before ventured to ascend above !New Orleans. 
The navy worked hard all the afternoon to release 
her, but in vain. The hawsers parted like pack- 
thread. I w^as on board when a grizzled quarter- 
master, the very type of an old man-of-warsman, 
came up to the commodore on the quarter-deck, and, 
pulling his forelock, reported that there was a six- 
inch hawser in the hold. Farragut ordered it up at 
once. Two of our army transports, the most power- 
ful, were lashed together, the hawser passed round 
them, and slackened. They then started with a jerk. 
The Hartford set her machinery in motion, the gun- 
boat lashed along-side started hers, and the old ship 
came off, and was swept down with the current. It 



40 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

required some seamanship to disentangle all these 
vessels. 

We found that the waters had subsided since our 
last visit to Yicksburg, and so landed at Young's 
Point, opposite the town. Some years previously 
there had been a dispute between the State authori- 
ties of Louisiana and of Mississippi, and the Legisla- 
ture of the former had taken%teps to turn the river, 
and cut off Vicksburg by digging a canal across the 
peninsula opposite. This we knew, and decided to 
renew the attempt. We soon found traces of the 
engineers' work. The trees were cut down in a 
straight line across the Point. Here we set to work. 
Troops were sent to the different plantations both 
up and down the river, and the negroes pressed into 
the service. It was curious to observe the difference 
of opinion among the old river captains as to the fea- 
sibility of our plan. Some were sure that the river 
would run through the cut; others swore that it 
would not, and could not be made to. The matter 
was soon settled by the river itself ; for it suddenly 
rose one night, filled up our ditch, undermined the 
banks, and in a few hours destroyed our labor of 
days. A somewhat careful observation of the Mis- 
sissippi since has satisfied me that if a canal be cut 



FA RR A GUT. 41 



wliere tlie stream impinges upon the bank, it will 
take to it as naturally as a duck does to water. But 
when the current strikes the opposite bank, as it 
does at Young's Point, you can not force it from 
its course. Had we attempted our canal some miles 
farther up, where the current strikes the right bank, 
we should have succeeded. Grant, the next year, 
renewed our ditch-digging experiment in the same 
place, and with infinitely greater resources, but with 
no better success. 

Farragut had now made his preparations to run 
by the batteries. He divided his squadron into three 
divisions, accompanying the second division himself. 
The third was under command of Captain Craven, of 
the BrooMyn. We stationed Nim's light battery — 
and a good battery it w^as — on the point directly op- 
posite Yicksburg, to assist in silencing the fire of one 
of the most powerful of the shore batteries. Yery 
early in the morning Farragut got under way ; 
two of his divisions passed, completely silencing the 
rebel batteries. The third division did not attempt 
the passage. This led to an angry correspondence 
between the commodore and Craven, and resulted in 
Craven's being relieved, and ordered to report to 
Washington. There was a great difference of opin- 



42 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

ion among naval officers as to Craven's conduct. 
He was as brave an officer as lived. He contended 
that it was then broad daylight, that the gunners on 
shore had returned to their guns, and that his feeble 
squadron would have been exposed to the whole fire 
of the enemy, without any adequate object to be 
gained in return. Farragut replied that his orders 
were to pass, and that he should have done it at all 
hazards. 

And now an incident occurred which mortified 
the commodore deeply. His powerful fleet, re-en- 
forced by Davis, lay above Yicksburg. The weather 
was intensely hot, and the commodore, contrary to 
his own judgment, as he told Williams, but on the 
urgent request of his officers, had permitted the fires 
to be extinguished. Early one morning we had sent 
a steamboat with a party up the river to press ne- 
groes into our canal work. Suddenly a powerful 
iron -clad, flying the Confederate colors, appeared 
coming out of the Yazoo River There was noth- 
ing for our unarmed little boat to do but to run for 
it. The Arkansas opened from her bow guns, and 
the first shell, falling among the men drawn up on 
deck, killed the captain of the company, and killed 
or wounded ten men. It is so rarely that a shell 



THE ''ARKANSAS:' 43 

commits sncli havoc, that I mention it as an un- 
common occurrence. 

The firing attracted the attention of the fleet, and 
they beat to quarters. But there was no time to get 
up steam. The Arltansas passed through them all 
almost unscathed, receiving and returning their fire. 
The shells broke against her iron sides without in- 
flicting injury. The only hurt she received was 
from the Richmond. Alden kept his guns loaded 
with powder only, prepared to use shell or shot as 
circumstances might require. He loaded with solid 
shot, and gave her a broadside as she passed. This 
did her some damage, but nothing serious. 

In the mean time the alarm was given to the trans- 
ports. Farragut had sent us an ofiicer to say that 
the Arkansas w^as coming, that he should stop her if 
he could, but that he feared that he could not. The 
troops were got under arms, and our two batteries 
ordered to the levee. A staff officer said to General 
Williams, " General, don't let us be caught here like 
rats in a trap ; let us attempt something, even if we 
fail." "What would you do?" said the general. 
" Take the Laurel Hill^ put some picked men on 
board of her, and let us ram the rebel. We may 
not sink her, but we may disable or delay her, and 



44 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

help the gun-boats to capture her." " A good idea," 
said the general; "send for Major Boardman." 
Boardman, the daring officer to whom I have before 
referred, had been brought up as a midshipman. He 
was known in China as the " American devil," from 
a wild exploit there in scaling the walls of Canton 
one dark night when the gates were closed ; climbing 
them with the help of his dagger only, making holes 
in the masonry for his hands and feet. He was aft- 
erward killed by guerrillas, having become colonel 
of his regiment. Boardman came ; the Laurel Hill 
was cleared; twenty volunteers from the Fourth 
Wisconsin were put on board, and steam got up. 
The captain refused to go, and another transport 
captain was put in command. We should have at- 
tempted something, perhaps failed ; but I think one 
or other of us would have been sunk. But our prep- 
arations were all in vain. The Arkansas had had 
enough of it for that day. She rounded to, and took 
refuge under the guns of Yicksburg. 

Keporting this incident to Butler subsequently, he 
said, "You would have sunk her, sir; you would 
have sunk her." 

Farragut, as I have said, was deeply mortified. 
He gave orders at once to get up steam, and pre- 



THE ''ARKANSAS'' BURNED. 45 

pared to run the batteries again, determined to de- 
stroy the rebel ram at all hazards. He had resolved 
to ram her with the Hartford as she lay under the 
guns of Yicksburg. It was with great difficulty he 
was dissuaded from doing so, and only upon the 
promise of Alden that he would do it for him in the 
RicJimond. Farragut, in his impulsive way, seized 
Alden's hand, " Will you do this for me, Alden ? 
will you do it f The rapidity of the current, the 
unusual darkness of the night, and the absence of 
lights on the Arhansas and on shore, prevented the 
execution of the plan. To finish with the Arhansas, 
she afterward ^ame down the river to assist in the 
attack on Baton Rouge. Part of her machinery gave 
out; she turned and attempted to return to Yicks- 
burg, was pursued by our gun -boats, run ashore, 
abandoned, and burned. 

The rebels never had any luck with their gun- 
boats. They always came to grief. They were 
badly built, badly manned, or badly commanded. 
The Louisiana, the Arkansas, the Manassas, the 
Tennessee, the Albemarle — great things were ex- 
pected of them all, and they did nothing. 

But we were as far from the capture of Yicks- 
burg as ever. Fever attacked our men in those 



46 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

fatal swamps, and they became thoroughly discour- 
aged. The sick-list was fearful. Of a battery of 
eighty men, twenty only were fit for duty. The 
Western troops, and they were our best, were home- 
sick. Lying upon the banks of the Mississippi, 
with transports above Yicksburg convenient for 
embarkation, they longed for home. The colonels 
came to Williams, and suggested a retreat up the 
river, to join Halleck's command. Williams held a 
council of war. He asked me to attend it. The 
colonels gave their opinions, some in favor of, and 
others against, the proposed retreat. When it came 
to my turn, I spoke strongly against it. I urged 
that we had no right to abandon our comrades at 
New Orleans; that it might lead to the recapture 
of that city ; that if our transports were destroyed, 
we should at least attempt to get back by land. I 
do not suppose that Williams ever entertained the 
least idea of retreating up the river, but thought it 
due to his officers to hear what they had to say in 
favor of it. The plan was abandoned. 



SICKNESS. 47 



CHAPTEK lY. 

Sickness.— Battle of Baton Rouge. — Death of "Williams. — "Fix Bay- 
onets !"— Thomas Williams.— His Body.— General T. W. Sherman. 
— Butler relieved.— General Orders, No. 10. — Mr. Adams and Lord 
Palmerston. — Butler's Style. 

Of the events which immediately followed the 
council of war referred to in the last chapter, the 
writer knows only by report. He was prostrated 
with fever, taken to a house on shore, moved back 
to head - quarters boat, put on board a gun - boat, 
and sent to New Orleans. Farragut, with his usual 
kindness, offered to take him on board the Hartford, 
give him the fleet-captain's cabin, and have the fleet- 
surgeon attend him. But Williams declined the 
offer. Farragut then offered to send him to E^ew 
Orleans in a gun- boat. This Williams accepted. 
The writer was taken to New Orleans, sent to mil- 
itary hospital, an assistant-surgeon's room given up 
to him, and every care lavished upon him ; for one 
of Williams's staff — poor De Kay — wounded in a 
skirmish, had died in hospital. Butler had con- 



48 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

ceived the idea — erroneous, I am sure — that he had 
been neglected by the surgeons. When I was 
brought down he sent them word that if another of 
Williams's staff died there, they would hear from 
him. I did not die. 

Meantime, unable to effect any thing against 
Yicksburg, with more than half his men on the sick- 
list, Williams returned to Baton Eouge. The rebel 
authorities, with spies everywhere, heard of the con- 
dition of our forces, and determined to attack them. 
Early one foggy morning twelve thousand men, un- 
der Breckenridge, attacked our three or four thou- 
sand men fit for duty But they did not catch 
Williams napping. He had heard of the intended 
movement, and was prej^ared to meet it. Our forces 
increased, too, like magic. Sick men in hospital, 
who thought that they could not stir hand or foot, 
found themselves wonderfully better the moment 
there was a prospect of a fight. Happily a thick 
mist prevailed. Happily, too, they first attacked 
the Twenty-first Indiana, one of our stanchest regi- 
ments, holding the centre of the position. This fine 
regiment was armed with breech loaders, the only 
ones in the Gulf. Lying on the ground, they could 
see the legs of the rebels below the mist, and fire 



DEATH OF WILLIAMS. 49 

with a steady aim upon them, themselves unseen. 
On the right the Thirtieth Massachusetts was en- 
gaged, but not hotly. The left was but slightly 
pressed. Williams had carefully reconnoitred the 
ground the afternoon before, and marked out his 
different positions. As the battle progressed, he fell 
back upon his second position, contracting his lines. 
As it grew hotter, he issued orders to fall back uj^on 
the third position. As he gave the order, the lieu- 
tenant-colonel of the Twenty-first, Colonel Keith, as 
plucky a little fellow as lived, came to him and said, 
" For God's sake, general, don't order us to fall back ! 
We'll hold this position against the whole d — d rebel 
army." " Do your men feel that way, colonel ?" re- 
plied Williams ; and turning to the regiment, he said, 
" Fix bayonets !" As he uttered these words, he was 
shot through the heart. The men fixed bayonets, 
charged, and the rebels gave way. But there was 
no one competent to take command. The Fourth 
Wisconsin, on our left, waited in vain for the orders 
Williams had promised them, eager to advance, for 
he had meant that this regiment should take the 
rebels in flank. The victory was won, but its fruits 
were not gathered. 

I think that grander words were never uttered by 
3 



50 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

a commander on the field of battle as he received 
his death -wound than these words of Williams's. 
" Fix bayonets !" means business, and in this in- 
stance they meant victory. 

Thomas Williams was a noble fellow. Had he 
lived, he would have been one of the great generals 
of our war. Butler told the writer that, had Wil- 
liams survived Baton Rouge, it was his intention to 
have turned over the whole military command to 
him, and confined himself to civil matters. The 
" General Order " he issued on Williams's death is a 
model of classic and pathetic English. It is quoted 
as such by Eichard Grant White in his " Miscella- 
ny." I give it entire, for it can not be too widely 
circulated, both on account of its style and its sub- 
ject. 

" Head-quarters, Depai-tment of the Gulf, 
"New Orleans, August Yth, 1862. 

" General Orders, ITo. 56 : 

" The commanding general announces to the 
Army of the Gulf the sad event of the death of 
Brigadier -general Thomas Williams, commanding 
Second Brigade, in camp at Baton Rouge. 

^' The victorious achievement, the repulse of the di- 
vision of Major-general Breckenridge by the troops 
led on by General Williams, and the destruction of 
the mail-clad Arkansas by Captain Porter, of the 



THOMAS WILLIAMS. 5 1 

navj, is made sorrowful by the fall of our brave, 
gallant, and successful fellow-soldier. 

^' General Williams graduated at West Point in 
1837 ; at once joined the Fourth Artillery in Flor- 
ida, where he served with distinction ; was thrice 
breveted for gallant and meritorious services in 
Mexico as a member of General Scott's staff. His 
life was that of a soldier devoted to his country's 
service. His country mourns in sympathy with his 
wife and children, now that country's care and pre- 
cious charge. 

"We, his companions in arms, who had learned to 
love him, weep the true friend, the gallant gentle- 
man, the brave soldier, the accomplished officer, the 
pure patriot and victorious hero, and the devoted 
Christian. All, and more, went out when Williams 
died. By a singular felicity, the manner of his death 
illustrated each of these generous qualities. 

" The chivalric American gentleman, he gave up 
the vantage of the cover of the houses of the city, 
forming his lines in the open field, lest the women 
and children of his enemies should be hurt in the 
fight. 

"A good general, he made his dispositions and pre- 
pared for battle at the break of day, when he met 
his foe ! 

"A brave soldier, he received the death-shot lead- 
ing his men ! 

"A patriot hero, he was fighting the battle of 



CAMPy COURT, AND SIEGE. 



his country, and died as went up the cheer of vic- 
tory ! 

^'A Christian, he sleeps in the hope of a blessed 
Redeemer ! 

"His virtues we can not exceed; his example we 
may emulate, and, mourning his death, we pray, 
' May our last end be like his.' 

" The customary tribute of mourning will be worn 
by the officers in the department. 

" By command of Major-general BrTLER. 

"R. T. Davis, Captain and A. A. A. G." 

Williams was an original thinker. He had some 
rather striking ideas about the male portion of the 
human race. He held that all men were by nature 
cruel, barbarous, and coarse, and were only kept in 
order by the influence of women — their wives, moth- 
ers, and sisters. "Look at those men," he would 
say. "At home they are respectable, law-abiding 
citizens. It's the women who make them so. Here 
they rob hen-roosts, and do things they would be 
ashamed to do at home. There is but one thing 
will take the place of their women's influence, and 
that is discipline ; and I'll give them enough of it." 
I used to think his views greatly exaggerated, but I 
came to be very much of his opinion before the war 
was over. 



WILLIAMS'S BODY. 53 

A curious thing happened to his body. It was 
sent down in a transport with wounded soldiers. 
She came in collision with the gunboat Oneida com- 
ing up, and was sunk. Various accounts were given 
of the collision. It was of course reported that the 
rebel pilot of the transport had intentionally run 
into the gun -boat. I think this improbable, for I 
have observed that rebel pilots value their lives as 
much as other people. Captain (afterward Admiral) 
Lee lay by the wreck, and picked up the wounded : 
none were lost. Shortly afterward Gun-boat ISTo. 1, 
commanded by Crosby, a great friend of Williams, 
came up. Lee transferred the men to her, ordered 
her to New Orleans, and himself proceeded to Ba- 
ton Eouge. Crosby heard that Williams's body 
was on board. He spent several hours in search- 
ing for it, but without success. He reluctantly con- 
cluded to abandon the search. Some hours later 
in the day, and several miles from the scene of the 
disaster, a piece of the wreck was seen floating 
down the current, with a box upon it. A boat was 
lowered, and the box was picked up. It turned out 
to be the coffin containing the body. His portman- 
teau too floated ashore, fell into honest hands, and 
was returned to me by a gentleman of the coast. 



54 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

It had been General Butler's intention, on my re- 
covery, to give me command of the Second Louisi- 
ana, a regiment he was raising in New Orleans, most- 
ly from disbanded and rebel soldiers. My recovery 
was so long delayed, however, that he was compelled 
to fill the vacancy otherwise. Shortly afterward 
General T. W. Sherman was ordered to New Or- 
leans, and I was assigned to duty on his staff. He 
was sent to Carondelet to take charge of the post 
at the Parapet, and of all the northern approaches 
to New Orleans. This was done under orders from 
Washington ; but of this Sherman was not aware, for 
no copy of the orders had been sent him. He never 
knew to what an important command it was the in- 
tention of the Government to assign him till some 
years later, when the writer, having become Adju- 
tant-general of the Department of the Gulf, found 
the orders in the archives of the Department. 

But the days of Butler's command were brought 
to a close. Banks arrived with re-enforcements, and 
exhibited his orders to take command of the Depart- 
ment. No one was more surprised than Butler. 
He had supposed that Banks's expedition was direct- 
ed against Texas. His recall seemed ungrateful on 
the part of the Government, for it was to him that 



BUTLER RELIEVED. 55 

the capture of New Orleans at that early date was 
principally due. It is probable that the consuls in 
that city had complained of him, and our Govern- 
ment, thinking it all-important to give no cause of 
complaint to foreign governments, Great Britain and 
France especially, recalled him. 

As General Butler will not again appear in these 
pages, I can not close this part of my narrative with- 
out endeavoring to do him justice in regard to one 
or two points on which he has been attacked. The 
silver-spoon story is simply absurd. Butler confis- 
cated and used certain table-silver. When Banks re- 
lieved him, he turned it over to him. When a howl 
was made about it toward the close of the war, and 
the Government referred the papers to Butler, for a 
report, he simply forwarded a copy of Banks's quar- 
ter-master's receipt. I was amused once at hearing 
that inimitable lecturer, Artemus Ward, get off a joke 
upon this subject in New Orleans. He was describ- 
ing the Mormons, and a tea-party at Brigham Young's, 
and said that Brigham Young probably had a larger 
tea-service than any one in the world, " except," said 
he, and then paused as if to reflect — ''except, per- 
haps. General Butler." Imagine the effect upon a 
Kew Orleans audience. It is perhaps needless to 



56 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

observe that Butler was not at that time in com- 
mand. 

The only charge against Butler which was never 
thoroughly disproved was that he permitted those 
about him to speculate, to the neglect of their duties 
and to the injury of our cause and good name. He 
must have been aware of these speculations, and 
have shut his eyes to them. But that he himself 
profited pecuniarily by them, I do not believe. 

The famous General Orders, E'o. 10, " The Wom- 
an's Order," was issued while I was in New Orleans, 
and excited much and unfavorable comment. But- 
ler ordered that ladies insulting United States offi- 
cers should be treated " as women of the town plying 
their trade." Strong, his adjutant -general, remon- 
strated, and begged him to alter it. He said that 
he meant simply that they should be arrested and 
punished according to the municipal law of the city, 
i. 6., confined for one night and fined five dollars. 
Strong replied, " Why not say so, then ?" But But- 
ler has much of the vanity of authorship. He was 
pleased with the turn of the phrase, thought it hap- 
py, and refused to surrender it. 

In this connection, when in London, I heard an 
anecdote of Mr. Adams and Lord Palmerston which 



BUTLER'S STYLE. 57 

is not generally known. It was not often that any 
one got the better of old " Pam," but Mr. Adams 
did. When Butler's order reached England, Lord 
Palmerston was the head of the Government ; Lord 
John Eussell was Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs. Lord Palmerston wrote to Mr. Adams to 
know if the order as printed in the London papers 
was authentic. Mr. Adams asked if he inquired of- 
ficially or privately. Lord Palmerston replied rath- 
er evasively. Mr. Adams insisted. Lord Palmer- 
ston answered that if Mr. Adams must know, he 
begged him to understand that he inquired officially. 
Mr. Adams had the correspondence carefully cop- 
ied in Moran's best handwriting, and inclosed it to 
Lord John with a note inquiring, who was Her 
Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ; was 
it Lord Palmerston, or was it Lord John ? A quick 
reply came from Lord John, asking him to do noth- 
ing further in the matter till he heard from him 
again. ,The next day a note was received from 
Lord Palmerston withdrawing the correspondence. 

I have given two specimens of Butler's style. 
Here is another, and of a different character. At 
the request of a naval officer in high command, Far- 
ragut applied to Butler for steamboats to tow the 

3* 



58 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

mortar vessels to Yicksburg. Butler replied that 
he regretted that he had none to spare. The of- 
ficer answered that if Butler would prevent his 
brother from sending quinine and other contraband 
stores into the Confederacy, there would be boats 
enough. This came to Butler's ears. He answered. 
After giving a list of his boats, and stating their dif- 
ferent employments, he proceeded substantially as 
follows. I quote from memory. " Xow, there are 
two kinds of lying. The first is when a man delib- 
erately states what he knows to be false. The sec- 
ond is when lie states what is really false, but what 
at the time he believes to be true. For instance, 

when Captain reports that the ram Louisiana 

came down upon his gun -boats, and a desperate 
fight ensued, he stated what is in point of fact false ; 
for the Louisiana was blown up and abandoned, 
and was drifting with the current, as is proved by 
the report of the rebel commander, Duncan : but 
Captain believed it to be true, and acted ac- 
cordingly; for he retreated to the mouth of the 
river, leaving the transports to their fate." 



GENERAL SHERMAN. 59 



CHAPTEE Y. 

T. W. Sherman. — Contrabands, — Defenses of New Orleans. — Ex- 
change of Prisoners. — Amenities in War. — Port Hudson. — Recon- 
noissanee in Force. — The Fleet. — Our Left. — Assault of May 27th. 
— Sherman wounded. — Port Hudson surrenders. 

The autumn of 1862 passed without any special 
incident. Sherman rebuilt the levees near Carroll- 
ton, repaired and shortened the Parapet, pushed his 
forces to the north, and occupied and fortified Man- 
chac Pass. All these works were constructed by 
Captain Bailey, to whom I have already alluded, 
and of whom I shall have much to say hereafter; 
for he played a most important and conspicuous part 
in the Louisiana campaigns. At Manchac he con- 
structed a hijou of a work built of mud and clam- 
shells. He had the most remarkable faculty of mak- 
ing the negroes work. I have seen the old inhab- 
itants of the coast (French cote^ bank of the river) 
stopping to gaze with surprise at the "niggers" 
trundling their wheelbarrows filled with earth on the 
double-quick. Such a sight was never before seen 



6o CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

in Louisiana, and probably never will be again. 
Sherman was the first officer, too, to enroll the 
blacks, set them to work, and pay them wages. He 
was no professed friend of the negro, but he did 
more practically for their welfare to make them use- 
ful, and save them from vagabondage, than Phelps 
or any other violent abolitionist, who said that the 
slaves had done enough work in their day, and so 
left them in idleness, and fed them at their own 
tables. Every negro who came within our lines — 
and there were hundreds of them — was enrolled 
on the quartermaster's books, clothed, fed, and paid 
wages, the price of his clothing being deducted. 
The men worked well. They were proud of being 
paid like white men. 

Later in the season, Sherman sent out successful 
expeditions into the enemy's territory. One to Pon- 
chitoula destroyed a quantity of rebel government 
stores; another, across Lake Pontchartrain, captured 
a valuable steamer. Sherman employed an admira- 
ble spy, the best in the Department. As a rule, both 
Butler's and Banks's spies were a poor lot, constant- 
ly getting up cock-and-bull stories to nlagnify their 
own importance, and thus misled their employers. 
Sherman's spy was a woman. Her information al- 



DEFENSES OF NEW ORLEANS. 6 1 

ways turned out to be reliable, and, what is perhaps 
a little remarkable, was never exaggerated. 

Butler bad now left the Department, and Banks 
was in command. About this time Holly Springs 
was occupied by Yan Dorn, and our depots burned, 
Grant falling back. The attack upon Yicksburg, too, 
from the Yazoo River had failed. Banks's spies ex- 
aggerated these checks greatly, and reported that the 
enemy was in full march upon New Orleans. There 
was something of a stampede among us. A new 
command was created, called the " Defenses of New 
Orleans," and given to Sherman. In a fortnight the 
face of these defenses was vastly changed. When 
he took command, the city was undefended to the 
east and south. In a few days the rebel works were 
rebuilt, guns mounted, light batteries stationed near 
the works, each supported by a regiment of infantry. 
New Orleans, with our gun-boats holding the river 
and lake, was impregnable. 

No commanding officer in our army was more 
thorough in his work than Sherman. I remember 
an instance of this in an exchange of prisoners which 
took place under his orders. The arrangements 
were admirable. We were notified that a schooner 
with United States soldiers on board lay at Lakeport, 



62 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

on Lake Pont cliar train. Within an hour of receiving 
the report I was on my way to effect the exchange. 
I was accompanied by our quartermaster, to insure 
prompt transportation to New Orleans ; by our com- 
missary, to see that the men were fed, for our pris- 
oners were always brought in with very insufficient 
supplies, the rebel officers assuring us that they had 
not food to give them ; and by our surgeon, to give 
immediate medical assistance to those requiring it. 
Sherman told me to give the rebel officers in charge 
a breakfast or dinner, and offered to pay his share. 
We reached Lakeport about sunset. I went on 
board at once, and made arrangements for the ex- 
change at six o'clock in the morning. I inquired of 
the men if they had had any thing to eat. " Noth- 
ing since morning." The officer in charge explained 
that they had been delayed by head-winds ; but they 
were always delayed by head-winds. We sent food 
on board that night. At six in the morning the 
schooner was warped along-side of the pier. A train 
was run down, a line of sentries posted across the 
pier, and no stranger permitted to approach. The 
roll was called, and as each man answered to his 
name, he stepped ashore and entered the train. 
Meantime I had ordered down a breakfast from the 



EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS. (>Z 

famous French restaurant at Lakeport ; and while 
the necessary arrangements were being completed by 
the quartermaster, we gave the Confederate officers 
a breakfast. It was easy to see, from the manner 
in which they attacked it, that they did not fare so 
sumptuously every day. Colonel Szymanski, who 
commanded, an intelligent and gentlemanly officer, 
asked permission to buy the remnants from the res- 
taurant for lunch and dinner on the return voyage. 
The train was now ready, the schooner set sail, and 
we started for New Orleans. On our arrival, we 
bought out a baker's shop and one or two orange- 
women. It was a long time since the prisoners had 
tasted white bread. They formed, and marched to 
the barracks. Before noon that day they were in 
comfortable quarters, and seated at a bountiful din- 
ner, prepared in advance for them. This was Sher- 
man's organization. I had an opportunity to con- 
trast it, not long after, with an exchange effected un- 
der direct orders from head-quarters. The contrast 
was not in Banks's favor. 

On this occasion I had gone down as a spectator, 
and to see if I could be of use. I was going on 
board the cartel, when I was stopped by a lady who 
asked me to take a young girl on board to see her 



64 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

brother. Of course I was compelled to refuse. Slie 
then asked if I would not tell her brother that she 
was on the end of the pier, that they might at least 
see each other. This I promised to do. On board 
I found a number of sailors, part of the crew of the 
Mississip;p% which had been recently lost at Port 
Hudson. As usual, they had had nothing to eat 
since the previous evening. 

Before leaving the vessel, I inquired for Lieuten- 
ant Adams. They told me that he was in "that 
boat," pointing to one, having pulled ashore, hoping 
to see his sister. As I approached the shore I met 
his boat returning ; I stopped it, and asked him if he 
had seen his sister. He had not. I told him to get 
in with me, and I would take him to her. He did 
so, and I pulled to within a few yards of the spot 
where she was standing. Scarcely a word passed 
between them, for both were sobbing. We remain- 
ed there about three minutes, and then pulled back. 
We were all touched, officers and men, by this little 
display of the home affections in the midst of war. 
I think it did us all good. 

General Banks was not pleased when he heard of 
this incident. Perhaps it was reported to him in- 
correctly. But Sherman thought that I had done 



PORT HUDSON. 65 



right. I always found that our regular officers 
were more anxious to soften the rigors of war, and 
to avoid all unnecessary severity, than our volunteers. 
On our march through Louisiana under Franklin, a 
strong provost guard preceded the column, whose 
duty it was to protect persons and property from 
stragglers till the army had passed. If planters in 
the neighborhood applied for a guard, it was always 
furnished. On one occasion such a guard was capt- 
ured by guerrillas. General Franklin wrote at once 
to General Taylor, protesting against the capture of 
these men as contrary to all the laws of civilized 
warfare. Taylor promptly released them, and sent 
them back to our lines. General Lee did the same 
in Virginia. 

And so the winter wore through, and the spring 
came. Banks made a successful expedition to Alex- 
andria, winning the battle of Irish Bend. I am the 
more particular to record this, as his reputation as a 
commander rests rather upon his success in retreat 
than in advance. And the month of May found us 
before Port Hudson. 

Yicksburg is situated eight hundred miles above 
ISTew Orleans. In all this distance there are but five 
commanding positions, and all these on the left or 



66 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

east bank of the river. It was very important to 
the rebels to fortify a point below the mouth of the 
Red Eiver, in order that their boats might bring 
forward the immense supplies furnished by Louisi- 
ana, Texas, and Arkansas. They selected Port Hud- 
son, a miserable little village not far below the Eed 
River, and fortified it strongly. Sherman had seen 
the importance of attacking this place when the 
works were commenced, but Butler told him, very 
truly, that he had not troops enough in the De23art- 
ment to justify the attempt. 

I think that it was the 24th of May when we 
closed in upon Port Hudson. Sherman's command 
held the left. He had a front of three miles, en- 
tirely too much for one division. The country 
was a terra incognita to us, and we had to feel our 
way. Of course there w^as much reconnoitring to 
be done — exciting and interesting work — but not 
particularly safe or comfortable. Sherman did 
much of this himself. He had a pleasant way of 
riding up in full sight of the enemy's batteries, ac- 
companied by his staff. Here he held us while he 
criticised the manner in which the enemy got his 
guns ready to open on us. Presently a shell would 
whiz over our heads, followed by another somewhat 



RECONNOISSANCE IN FORCE. 67 

nearer. Sherman would then quietly remark, " They 
are getting the range now : you had better scatter." 
As a rule we did not wait for a second order. 

I remember his sending out a party one day to 
reconnoitre to our extreme left, and connect with 
the fleet, which lay below Port Hudson. We knew 
it was somewhere there ; but how far off it lay, or 
what was the character of the country between us, 
we did not know. A company of cavalry reconnoi- 
tring in the morning had been driven in. Sherman 
determined to make a reconnoissance in force. He 
sent out the cavalry again, and supported it with a 
regiment of infantry, I asked permission to accom- 
pany them. He gave it, and added, " By - the - way, 
captain, when you are over there, just ride up and 
draw their fire, and see where their guns are. They 
won't hit you." I rode up and drew their fire, and 
they did not hit me; but I don't recommend the 
experiment to any of my friends. 

This reconnoissance w^as successful. We passed 
through a thickly wooded country, intersected by 
small streams, for about two miles, when we emerged 
upon the open in full view of the works of Port 
Hudson. This we had to cross, exposed to their 
fire. We thus gained the road, running along the 



68 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

top of the bluff ; and, following tliis, we came in 
view of the fleet. Our arrival produced a sensation. 
They had been looking out for us for two or three 
days. The men swarmed up the rigging and on to 
the yards. Fifty telescopes were leveled at us ; and 
as we galloped down the bluff and along the levee to 
the ships, cheer after cheer went up from the fleet. 
We went on board the nearest gun - boat, and got 
some bread - and - cheese and Bass — which tasted re- 
markably good, by -the -way. I staid but a little 
while, for I was anxious about my men. On our 
homeward march the enemy opened on us, and we 
lost two or three men. I felt saddened at the loss 
of any men while in some measure under my com- 
mand, and reported this loss first to the general. I 
was much comforted when he replied, " Lose men ! 
of course you lost men. Reconnoissances in force 
always lose men !" 

A few weeks previous to my visit to the fleet, 
Farragut had attempted to run by Port Hudson, 
with a view to communicate with Porter at Yicks- 
burg, but more especially to blockade the mouth of 
the Eed Eiver. This, though the least known of his 
great exploits, was probably the most perilous and 
the least successful. But two vessels passed the bat- 



OUR LEFT. 69 



teries — his own, the old Hartford^ as a matter of 
course, and the gun -boat that was lashed to her. 
Several were driven back disabled, and that fine 
ship, the Mississippi, got aground and was lost. 
The Hartford and her consort, however, did good 
service, preventing all rebel vessels from showing 
themselves upon the river between Port Hudson 
and Yicksburg. 

While on board the gun-boat, I remarked to her 
captain that I was surprised that General Banks did 
not make his assault upon our left, where we could 
have the aid of the fleet, instead of on the right, as he 
evidently proposed to do. The remark was repeat- 
ed to Farragut, who mentioned it to Banks. A day 
or two after the failure of our assault of the 27th of 
May, I was surprised by a summons to head-quar- 
ters, and still more surprised when I was asked what 
was my plan for taking Port Hudson. My plan was 
simply to utilize our principal fleet instead of ignor- 
ing it. Sherman, who, after his recovery from his 
wound received a few days later, visited the place 
after its fall, and carefully examined the ground, 
told me that the assault should undoubtedly have 
been made on our left, not only on account of the 
fleet, but on account of the character of the ground. 



70 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

We afterward erected batteries here within a very 
short distance of the enemy's, and commanding 
them ; and we dug np to their very citadel. Had 
another assault been ordered, as it seemed at one 
time probable, it would have been made here, and 
would probably have been a repetition, on a small 
scale, of the affair of the Malakoff. There was an- 
other advantage on this flank. Had we effected 
a lodgment even with a small force, we could have 
maintained our position in the angle between the 
parapet and the river until re-enforcements reached 
us. At the points selected for the assault of the 
27th of May — had we succeeded in getting in — w^e 
should have found ourselves exposed to attacks in 
front and on both flanks, and should probably have 
been driven out again. 

The siege of Port Hudson was tedious and bloody. 
Banks ordered an assault. It was made, and result- 
ed in a miserable repulse. He was asked why as- 
sault when the place must inevitably be starved out 
in a few weeks. He replied, "The people of the 
North demand blood, sir." Sherman led the assault 
in person, at the head of the Sixth Michigan regi- 
ment ; Bailey headed the negroes, with plank and 
other materials to fill up the fosse. I had heard be- 



ASSAULT OF MAY 27. 71 

fore of negroes turning white from fright, and did 
not believe it ; but it is literally true. The men ad- 
vanced within a few yards of the works, but could 
effect no lodgment. There never was a more useless 
waste of life. Sherman lost his leg, and his horse 
was killed under him ; one staff officer and his horse 
were killed; an orderly was killed; another staff 
officer was wounded, and his horse killed ; and an- 
other orderly had his horse killed. This is a pretty 
bloody ten minutes' work for a general and his staff. 

The staff officer who was wounded was Badeau, 
our consul-general at London, and author of that 
model military history, the first volume of the " Life 
of Grant." ' 

Fortunately, probably, for me, I had been sent 
with orders to Sherman's other brigade, to support 
the attack by an assault on the left. It was hot 
enough where I was. The shells shrieked over my 
head, and a round shot rolled playfully between my 
horse's legs. But it was nothing like the "hell of 
fire " to which Sherman was exposed. 

Sherman having been sent to New Orleans, to hos- 
pital, General William Dwight took command of the 
division. After a while another assault was made : 
it was as fruitless as the first. But the enemy was 



72 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

now getting short of provisions. They lived mostly 
on Indian corn. Many deserters came to ns, mostly 
Louisianians, for the " Wrackensackers " (Arkansas 
men) and the Texans rarely deserted. These made 
up the garrison. They reported great want in the 
place ; and, what was far better proof — for it will 
not do to trust implicitly to deserters' stories — their 
gums showed the want of proper food. The end 
was approaching. On the 4th of July Yicksburg 
surrendered. Our outposts communicated this intel- 
ligence to the rebel outposts, and chaffed them about 
it. The news was reported to Gardiner. He sent a 
flag to Banks to inquire if it were true. Banks re- 
plied that it was, and Port Hudson surrendered. 

It was curious to observe the sort of entente cor- 
diale which the soldiers on both sides established 
during the siege. When they were tired of trying 
to pick each other off through the loop-holes, one of 
them would tie a white handkerchief to his bayonet, 
and wave it above the parapet. Pretty soon a hand- 
kerchief, or its equivalent — for the rebs did not in- 
dulge in useless luxuries — would be seen waving on 
the other side. This meant truce. In a moment 
the men would swarm out on both sides, sitting with 
their legs dangling over the parapet, chaffing each 



TACIT TRUCE. 73 



other, and sometimes with pretty rough w*t. They 
were as safe as if a regular flag were out. E'o man 
dared to violate this tacit truce. If he had done so, 
his own comrades would have dealt roughly with 
him. After a while, on one side or the other, some 
one would cry out, " Get under cover now, Johnnie," 
or " Look out now, Yank ; we are going to fire," and 
the fire would recommence. 

Active military operations were now suspended, 
and I obtained leave of absence. But it was re- 
voked ; for General William B. Franklin had ar- 
rived in the Department, and I was assigned to his 
staff. I naturally felt disappointed at losing my 
leave, but I was subsequently glad that it had so 
happened ; for it led to my promotion, and to the 
establishment of friendly and pleasant relations 
which have survived the war. 

4 



74 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



CHAPTEK YI. 

Major-general Franklin. — Sabine Pass. — Collision at Sea. — March 
through Louisiana. — Rebel Correspondence. — "The Gypsy's Was- 
sail." — Rebel Women. — Rebel Poetry. — A Skirmish. — Salt Island. 
— Winter CUmate. — Banks's Capua. — Major Joseph Bailey. 

Early in the fall of 1863, Major-general Franklin 
was put in command of the military part of an expe- 
dition which had been planned against Sabine Pass, 
on the coast of Texas. The arrangement was for 
the navy to enter the port at night, get in the rear 
of the work, and capture it ; w^hereupon the troops 
were to land, garrison the place, and hold it as a base 
for future operations in Texas. The plan failed. 
The expected signals were not displayed. The gun- 
boats made the attempt in broad daylight, got 
aground in the shallow and winding channel, and 
were captured. Many of the sailors jumped over- 
board, swam ashore, ran down through the marsh, 
and were picked up by our boats. The plan had 
failed, and there was nothing for the troops to do 
but to return. 



COLLISION AT SEA. 75 

That night we had a collision between one of our 
large sea -going steamers and our light river boat 
used for head - quarters. Our side was apparently 
smashed in. A panic seized the crew ; captain, pilot, 
engineer, hands, all rushed for the steamer. Most 
of our head - quarters company and officers follow- 
ed the example. I was reading in the cabin when 
the collision occm-red. The crash and the cries at- 
tracted my attention. I went upon deck, and tried 
for a moment to restore order, but in vain. The 
soldiers on the steamer shouted, " Come on board ! 
come on board ! You're sinking ! there's a great 
hole in your side!" The waves dashed our little 
boat against the sides of the steamer, and the light 
plank of the wheel-house was grinding and crashing. 
I can easily understand how contagious is a panic. 
It was with a great effort I could restrain myself 
from following the example set me. I knew, how- 
ever, that my place was with the general, and I went 
in search of him. I found him on the hurricane- 
deck, seated on the sky -light, quietly smoking his 
cigar. I said, " General, are you not going to leave 
herf "I don't believe she'll sink," he replied. 
"But she is an abandoned ship, sir; every one has 
left her." "Have they? are you sure?" "I'll 



76 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

make sure," I replied ; and, going to the wheel-house, 
found it deserted. Then I looked into the engine- 
room — I remember the engine looked so grim and 
stiff in its solitude. Franklin then consented to go. 
We found a quiet place aft where there was no con- 
fusion ; and as the waves tossed up our light vessel 
to a level with the steamer, he sprung upon her 
deck. As soon as he had jumped, I attempted to 
follow, but the vessel was not tossed high enough. 
So I watched my chance, and plunged head foremost 
into a port - hole, where friendly hands caught me, 
and prevented my falling on the deck. 

But our little steamer would not sink. Franklin 
at once ordered out the boats, secured the captain 
and crew, and returned on board. We found that 
the outer shell of the boat was crushed in, and that 
she was leaking badly; but the inner ceiling was 
unhurt. We easily kept her free with the pumps 
until we had repaired damages. I do not think that 
the general ever quite forgave me for persuading 
him to leave her. 

As we had failed by sea, we next tried the land, 
and with better success. We marched to Opelousas, 
driving the rebels before us. A pleasant incident 
happened on this march, one of those trifles which 



{ 



REBEL CORRESPONDENCE. 77 

soften the horrors of war. I had known at New 
Orleans a charming rebel Creole whose husband was 
a general in the Confederate army. I had had an 
opportunity to render the family some trifling serv- 
ice. One day we intercepted a courier bearing a 
letter from General to General Miles, com- 
manding the district. He wrote that he had fallen 
upon the rear of our column and picked up a num- 
ber of stragglers, and that he should send them next 
day to head-quarters. Of course we laid our plans, 
captured the escort, and recaptured our own men. 
With the general's assent, I sent the letter to the 
lady in question, with a line to the effect that she 
probably had not seen her husband's handwriting 
for some time, and might be gratified to learn from 
the inclosed letter that he was well. She would re- 
gret to learn, however, that our men had been retak- 
en and the escort captured ; that I should spare no 
pains to capture the general himself, and send him 
to his wife ; and that if he knew what fate was in 
store for him, I was sure that he would make but a 
feeble resistance. She replied in the same spirit, 
that with such generous enemies war lost half its 
terrors. 

Under Franklin nothino^ was left undone that 



78 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE, 

could properly be done to soften the rigors of war 
to non-combatants. Often have his staff officers 
spent weary hours over intercepted correspondence. 
It was our duty to examine the correspondence in 
search of intelligence that might be useful to us ; but 
it was no part of our duty carefully to reseal those 
letters which were purely on domestic or personal 
matters, re-inclose the hundred odd little souvenirs 
they contained, and send them under a flag to the 
rebel lines. And yet we did this repeatedly. I 
wonder if the rebels ever did as much for us any- 
where in the Confederacy ! 

Speaking of intercepted letters, I remember that 
at ^ew Orleans we once seized a bag as it was about 
to cross the lake. Among other letters, it contained 
one from a young lady to her brother-in-law in Mo- 
bile. I have rarely seen a cleverer production. She 
gave an account, with great glee, of a trick she had 
played upon a Boston newspaper, perhaps the " Re- 
spectable Daily." She wrote that she had sent them 
a poem called " The Gypsy's Wassail," the original 
in Sanscrit, the translation of course in English, and 
all that was patriotic and loyal. " ]^ow, the San- 
scrit," she wrote, "was English written backward, 
and read as follows : 



''THE GYPSY'S WASSAIL:' 79 

" ' God bless our brave Confederates, Lord ! 
Lee, Johnson, Smith, and Beauregard ! 
Help Jackson, Smith, and Johnson Joe, 
To give them fits in Dixie, oh !' " 

Tlie Boston newspaper fell into the trap, and 
published this " beautiful and patriotic poem, by our 
talented contributor." But in a few days some sharp 
fellow found out the trick and exposed it. 

The letter was signed "Anna" simply, and no 
clue to the author was given. Anna thought that 
she was safe. She forgot that in the same bag was 
a letter from her sister to her husband, with signa- 
ture and address, in which she said, "Anna writes 
you one of her amusing letters." So I had discover- 
ed who Miss Anna was, and wrote her accordingly. 
I told her that her letter had fallen into the hands of 
one of those " Yankee " officers whom she saw fit to 
abuse, and who was so pleased with its wit that he 
should take great pleasure in forwarding it to its 
destination ; that in return he had only to ask that 
when the author of " The Gypsy's Wassail " favored 
the expectant world with another poem, he might be 
honored with an early copy. Anna must have been 
rather surprised. 

As may be supposed, there were constant trials of 



8o CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

wit between the rebels and ourselves, in which we 
sometimes came off second best. But they had their 
women to help them, which gave them an immense 
advantage, for in such matters one woman is worth 
a " wilderness " of men. I recollect one day we sent 
a steamboat full of rebel officers, exchanged prison- 
ers, into the Confederacy. They were generally ac- 
companied by their, wives and children. Our officers 
noticed the most extraordinary number of dolls on 
board — every child had a doll — but they had no sus- 
picions. A lady told me afterward that every doll 
was filled with quinine. The sawdust was taken out 
and quinine substituted. Depend upon it that fe- 
male wit devised that trick. 

They attacked us in poetry too, generally written 
by young ladies, and some of it decidedly clever. 
Strong, Butler's adjutant - general, had stopped the 
service in one of the Episcopal churches, because the 
clergyman prayed for Jeff Davis instead of for the 
"President of the United States." This furnished 
a theme for some bitter stanzas. Banks had sent a 
light battery to drive among a crowd of women and 
children collected on the levee to see their friends 
off, and disperse them. This furnished a fruitful 
theme for the rebel muse. 



A SKIRMISH. 8r 



To return to our Opelousas campaign. 

We followed the course of tlie Teclie for several 
days through a lovely country, the " Garden of 
Louisiana," and it deserves its name. The names in 
this j)art of the country are French. I remember 
we had a skirmish at a place called " Carrion-crow 
Bayou." It struck me as an odd name to give 
to a stream. I made inquiries, and found that a 
Frenchman had settled upon its banks, named Car- 
ran Cro. 

Our march to Opelousas was without striking in- 
cident. The Confederates once or twice came into 
position, as if to dispute our progress, but they al- 
ways gave way. Our return, however, was more 
eventful. The rebels attacked an outlying brigade, 
and caught it napping. It occupied a strong posi- 
tion, and could easily have beaten cavalry off, the 
only force by which it was attacked. Two regiments, 
however, were seized with a panic, and surrendered 
without firing a shot. The alarm was given to the 
main body, and re-enforcements quickly arrived, and 
drove off the rebels ; but they carried off many pris- 
oners. Not long afterward we turned the tables 
upon them. They encamped a regiment of Texas 
cavalry at a beautiful spot near Iberville, called 

4* 



82 CAxMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

" Camp Pratt." Franklin organized an attack upon 
them. One night he sent our cavalry to make a 
wide detour upon the prairie and get into their rear. 
Then he attacked them in front with infantry. They 
mounted and fled in disorder, and fell, nearly to a 
man, into the hands of our cavalry. It was a well- 
organized and well-conducted expedition, and reflect- 
ed credit upon Lee, who commanded the cavalry, and 
upon Cameron, who commanded the infantry. Tra- 
dition says that Dick Taylor, who commanded in 
that part of Louisiana, swore " like our army in Flan- 
ders " when he heard of it. 

There is a very curious salt island near Iberville, 
well worth a visit, in a scientific point of view. 
Franklin wanted very much to explore it, but he did 
not wish to take an ai*my as an escort, and he said it 
would be too absurd if he were captured on such an 
expedition. It would not have been quite so absurd 
for me, however ; so I went, accompanied by Colonel 
Professor Owen, of the Indiana University, and vol- 
unteers, and with our head-quarters cavalry company 
as an escort. The island lies in the Gulf, and is per- 
haps half a mile in diameter. In the centre is a hol- 
low about a hundred yards across, which has all the 
appearance of an extinct crater. Here, a few inches 



WINTER CLIMATE. 83 

below the surface, lies the salt, in an almost perfect 
state of purity. For years our Southern brethren, 
who do not shine as inventors, sunk wells, pumped 
up the water, evaporated it, and so made their salt. 
At last it occurred to some one more clever than his 
neighbors, "Why not blast out the salt itself ?" And 
so it was done. It seems scarcely possible, and yet 
I was credibly assured 'that so scarce was salt in the 
Confederacy, that wagons came all the way from 
Charleston, were loaded with salt, and returned to 
that city. It must have been a journey of months. 

"We wintered at Franklin, preparing for a spring 
campaign to the Ked Kiver. The climate of Loui- 
siana is delicious in winter. I have tried both the 
South of France and Italy, but know no climate 
equal to that of Louisiana. The summer, en revanche^ 
is intensely hot, and lasts from May to October, the 
thermometer ranging from .86° at night to 96° in the 
day-time. Yet the heat is not stifling. You feel 
no particular inconvenience from it at the time ; but 
two seasons affect the nervous system seriously, and 
a white man must from time to time get the North- 
ern or the sea-air. Happily the sea-coast is of easy 
access from New Orleans. 

But while our command was under canvas, and 



84 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

preparing for the approaching campaign, the cavaby 
was being mounted and drilled amidst the allure- 
ments of a large city. Why Banks did not send it to 
Thibodeaux, or to some other post where the prairie 
gave admirable opportunities for cavalry exercise, is 
a question which was often asked, but to which no 
satisfactory answer has ever been given. Farragut 
said that he feared that New Orleans would prove 
Banks's Capua. One of the consequences, as regards 
the cavalry, was, that they started upon the campaign 
with '' impedimenta " enough for an army. Cross- 
ing a ford one day, Franklin spied a country cart 
drawn by a mule, containing bedding, trunks, and a 
negro woman. He sent the corps inspector to see to 
whom it belonged. It turned out to be the property 
of a sergeant of a cavalry regiment. N^eedless to say 
that the cart went no farther. After the rebels had 
captured their Champagne, sardines, and potted an- 
chovies, at Sabine Cross Roads, they became excel- 
lent cavalry. 

And now, fortunately for the navy, Bailey joined 
our staff. He had done such good work at Port 
Hudson — built half our works, got out a steamboat* 
that lay high and dry in the mud, etc., etc. — that 
Banks had promoted him to be colonel of the reg- 



MAJOR JOSEPH BAILEY. 85 

iinent, over the head of the lieutenant - colonel. 
Banks had no right to do this. In so doing, he had 
usurped the prerogative of the Governor of Wiscon- 
sin ; and the governor, as might be expected, resent- 
ed it. Of course the governor was sustained by the 
War Department. Bailey was, naturally enough, 
annoyed and mortified, and wrote to me that he 
should leave the service ; indeed, he supposed that 
he was already out of it, for he had been mustered 
oat as major when he was mustered in as colonel ; 
and now he had been mustered out as colonel. I 
wrote to him not to go off at half-cock, to wTite 
to the governor and ask in what capacity he rec- 
ognized him, and then to the adjutant -general and 
ask the same question. He was answered by the 
governor that he recognized him as lieutenant-col- 
onel, and by the Government that they recognized 
him still as major. He then wrote me that he 
would gladly remain in the service if I could get 
him on Franklin's staff, but that, under the circum- 
stances, he could not return to his regiment. I 
spoke to the general upon the subject, and mention- 
ed all that he had done under Sherman at Port 
Hudson and elsewhere. The general applied for 
him; he was ordered to report to us, and was an- 



86 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

nounced as "Military Eogineer of the IS'ineteenth 
Army Corps." Thus it happened that Bailey was 
with us when his regiment was not, and the fleet 
on the Eed Eiver consequently saved from destruc- 
tion or capture. 



MISTAKES. 87 



CHAPTER YII. 

Mistakes. — Aifair at Mansfield. — Peach Hill. — Freaks of the Imagi- 
nation. — After Peach Hill. — General William Dwight. — Retreat to 
Pleasant Hill. — Pleasant Hill. — General Dick Taylor. — Taylor and 
the King of Denmark. — An Incident. 

I THINK it was on the 20th of March that we left 
for the Red River. We marched the whole distance, 
arriving at Natchitoches about the 3d of April. 
From Alexandria to IN'atchitoches we followed the 
Red River. Here began our mistakes. Banks ar- 
rived from New Orleans, and ordered us to take the 
inland road to Shreveport. Franklin suggested the 
river road, where the army and the fleet could ren- 
der mutual support. Banks said no ; that the oth- 
er was the shorter route. It was the shorter in dis- 
tance, but for the greater part of the way it was a 
narrow wood road, unfitted for the march of troops 
and the movement of artillery and wagons. We 
marched two or three days without interruption. 
Lee, who commanded the cavalry in advance, had 
often applied for a brigade of infantry to support 



88 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

him. Franklin had always declined to separate his 
infantry, answering that if Lee found the enemy too 
strong for him, to fall back, and w^e would come 
up wdth the whole infantry force and disperse them. 
On the evening of the 6th of April, I think it was, 
Banks came up at Pleasant Hill, and assumed com- 
mand. The next day we were beaten; for that 
evening Lee again applied for his infantry, and got 
them. Franklin sent in a written remonstrance 
against the danger of separating the infantry, and 
having it beaten in detail. He was disregarded; 
and we marched to certain defeat. 

The battle of Sabine Forks — Mansfield, the rebels 
call it; and as they won it, they have a right to 
name it — scarcely rises to the dignity of a battle. 
We had our cavalry and one brigade of infantry 
only engaged. We lost heavily, however, in guns 
and wagons, for the wagon-train of the cavalry fol- 
lowed close upon its heels, and blocked up the nar- 
row road, so that the guns could not be got off. 
When Franklin heard from Banks that the cavalry 
and infantry brigade were seriously engaged, and 
that he must send re - enforcements, he at once or- 
dered Emory up with the First Division of the Nine- 
teenth Corps, and then rode forward himself to thq 



FRANKLIN RETREATS. 89 

scene of action. Here lie lost his horse and was 
wounded in the leg, while one of our staff officers 
was killed. When our cavalry and brigade were 
finally defeated, the rebels advanced upon us. It 
was a striking and beautiful sight to see a column 
of their best infantry — the "Crescent City Regi- 
ment," I think it w^as — marching steadily down 
the road upon us, while their skirmishers swarmed 
through the woods and cotton fields. The column 
offered so beautiful a mark for a shell or two, that 
the general rode up to a retreating gun, and tried 
hard to get it into position, but the stampede was 
too general, and we had to look to our own safety. 
When he found how things were likely to turn out, 
Franklin had sent an aid-de-camp to Emory with or- 
ders to select a good position, come into line, and 
check the advancing enemy. Meantime, we re- 
treated, abandoning the road — it was too blocked up 
— and taking to the woods and across the cotton 
fields, not knowing our whereabouts, or whether we 
should land in the rebel lines or in our ow^n. At 
length w^e caught sight of Emory's red division flag, 
and a joyful sight it was. We soon reached it, and 
found that "Bold Emory" had chosen an excellent 
position on the summit of a gentle eminence, called 



90 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

Peach Hill, and had already got his men into line. 
His division had behaved admirably. In face of 
cavalry and infantry retreating in disorder — and 
every officer knows how contagious is a panic — the 
First Division of the Nineteenth Army Corps stead- 
ily advanced, not a man falling ont, fell into line, 
and quietly awaited the enemy. They did not keep 
us waiting long. In less than half an hour after 
we had joined the division, they appeared, march- 
ing steadily to the attack. But they were received 
with a fusillade they had not counted upon, and re- 
treated in confusion. Again they attempted an at- 
tack on our right, but with no better success. They 
were definitively repulsed. 

In this skirmish Franklin had another horse killed 
under him, shot in the shoulder, for the enemy's fire 
was very sharp for a few minutes. I offered him 
my horse, -but he refused it. The captain of our 
head-quarters cavalry company offered him his, and 
he accepted it. The captain dismounted a private. 

I saw here a striking instance of the effect pro- 
duced by the imagination when exalted by the ex- 
citement of battle. A staff officer by my side drop- 
ped his bridle, threw up his arms, and said, " I am 
hit." I helped him from his horse. He said, " My 



AFTER PEACH HILL. 91 

boot is full of blood." We sent him to the ambu- 
lance. I said to myself, " Good-bye to I shall 

go to his funeral to-morrow." Next day he appear- 
ed at head -quarters as well as ever. He had been 
struck by a spent ball. It had broken the skin and 
drawn a few drops of blood, but inflicted no serious 
injury. At Port Hudson I saw the same effect pro- 
duced by a spent ball. A man came limping off the 
field supported by two others. He said his leg was 
broken. The surgeon was rather surprised to find 
no hole in his stocking. Cutting it off, however, he 
found a black -and -blue mark on the leg — nothing 
more. The chaplain was reading to him, and the 
man was pale as death. I comforted him by telling 
him to send the stocking to his sweetheart as a trophy. 
As we lay on our arms that night at Peach Hill 
without fire, for we were permitted to light none, 
lest we should reveal our small numbers to the ene- 
my, we could hear distinctly the yells of the rebels 
as they found a fresh " cache " of the good things 
of the cavalry. It was very aggravating. They got 
our head-quarters ambulance too, but there was pre- 
cious little in it. Expecting to bivouac, we had 
thrown a few things hastily into it. All they got 
of mine was a tooth-brush. I comforted myself 



92 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

with the reflection that they would not know what 
use to put it to. 

Banks now sent for Franklin, and communicated 
to him his intention to remain on the battle-field all 
night, and renew the fight in the morning. Frank- 
lin represented that we had six thousand men at 
most, and the rebels thirteen thousand. Banks re- 
plied that A. J. Smith would be up. (Smith was 
thirteen miles in the rear, with eight thousand men.) 
" But how is he to get up, sir ? The road is block- 
ed up with the retreating troops and wagons, and 
is but a path, after all. He can't get up." ^' Oh ! 
he'll be up — he'll be up ;" and the interview ended. 
On liis return to head-quarters, partly under a tree 
and partly on a rail fence, Franklin told me what 
had happened. 

General William D wight, of Boston, commanded 
the First Brigade of Emory's division. I knew 
Dwight well, for he had succeeded Sherman in com- 
mand of our division at Port Hudson. I had recom- 
mended him highly to Franklin, when he was offer- 
ed his choice of two or three generals for commands 
in the Nineteenth Corps, as an officer who could be 
thoroughly relied upon in an emergency. Dwight 
had said to me, "Major, if Franklin ever wants 



PLEASANT HILL. 93 

Banks to do any thing, and lie won't do it, do you 
come to me." I thought that the time had arrived 
to go to him ; so I found my way through the dark- 
ness. " Well, general, we've got to stay here all 
night, and fight it out to-morrow." Dwight, who is 
quick as a flash, and whose own soldierly instinct 
told him what ought to be done, said at once, "Does 
Franklin think Banks ought to fall back upon A. J. 
Smith?" "Yes, he does." "Then I'll be d— d if 
he sha'n't do it. Wait here a minute." Dwight 
disappeared in the darkness. In ten minutes he re- 
turned and said, " It's all right ; the order is given." 

That night we fell back upon Pleasant Hill, 
Dwight bringing up the rear with his brigade. 
Franklin asked him if he could hold his position till 
half -past ten. " Till morning," he replied, " if you 
say so." 

At Pleasant Hill we found General Smith with 
his "gorillas," as they were profanely called. 
Smith's command boasted that they had been in 
many a fight, and had never been defeated. I be- 
lieve it was a true boast. It was partly luck, partly 
their own courage, and partly the skill with which 
they were handled. They were a rough lot, but 
good soldiers. I have seen them straggling along, 



94 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

one with a chicken hung to his bayonet, another 
with a pig on his back : turkeys, ducks, any thing of 
the kind came handy to them. The alarm sounded, 
and in an instant every man was in the ranks, silent, 
watchful, orderly, the very models of good soldiers. 

The battle which now ensued at Pleasant Hill 
formed no exception to the rule which Smith's corps 
had established. The rebels, too, had been re -en- 
forced, and attacked us in the afternoon with great 
spirit. But they soon found the difference between 
an affair with a single brigade of infantry, and one 
with three divisions fully prepared and admirably 
handled ; for Franklin and Smith had made all the 
dispositions. They drove in the left of our first line, 
where we had a Five Points New York regiment 
(rowdies, by -the -way, always make the poorest 
troops) ; but they could make no impression on the 
second line, composed of Smith's "gorillas," and 
were beaten off with considerable loss. 

General Dick Taylor, son of the President, com- 
manded the rebel army in these engagements, and 
received much credit, and deservedly, for the man- 
ner in which he had defeated us at Mansfield. It 
was reported that General Smith, who commanded 
the Trans -Mississippi Department of the Confed- 



GENERAL DICK TAYLOR. 95 

eracy, found fault with Taylor for attacking us, as 
he had intended to draw lis on to Shreveport, and 
there, with the help of Magruder from Texas, and 
Price from Arkansas, overwhelm ns disastrously. 
Perhaps it was as well that we had it out at Mans- 
field. As regards the affair at Pleasant Hill, it was 
a mistake of the rebels. They were not strong 
enough to attack us in position. Taylor has since 
said that the attack was against his better judgment, 
but that the officers who had come up the night be- 
fore wanted their share of glory. Perhaps, too, they 
had tasted the cavalry Champagne, and liked the 
brand. They might not have been quite so eager 
for the fray had they known what force they had 
to deal with at Mansfield, and what lay before them 
at Pleasant Hill. 

The writer has since met General Taylor in Lon- 
don, and a most agreeable companion he is. He is 
a great favorite in court circles, largely for his own 
merits, but partly as " Prince Dick." In monarch- 
ical countries they can not divest themselves of the 
idea that our presidents are monarchs, and their 
children princes. "Prince John," "Prince Dick," 
"Prince Fred," all received quasi-royal honors. At 
Constantinople, when Fred Grant was with Sherman, 



96 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

a lieutenant on his staff, it was to Grant that the 
Sultan addressed his remarks. Grant tried to stop 
it, but could not. 

They tell an amusing story of Dick Taylor in 
London. Taylor plays a good game of whist. The 
King of Denmark was on a visit to his daughter, 
and she sent for Taylor to make up a game with 
her father. Taylor won largely, and laughingly 
said to the king, " Your majesty can not find fault ; 
I am only getting back those 'Sound Dues' my 
country paid Denmark for so many years." 

Banks now wanted to continue his onward march 
to Shreveport, but A. J. Smith opposed it. He said 
that he belonged to Sherman's command, and had 
been lent to Banks for a season only; that he was 
under orders to return to Sherman by a certain day ; 
that much time had been lost ; and that if he un- 
dertook the march to Shreveport, he could not re- 
turn by the date appointed. Our supplies, too, were 
rather short, the cavalry having lost their wagon- 
train. We fell back, therefore, upon Grand Ecore, 
where we rejoined the fleet. And here a curious 
incident occurred. An officer in high position came 
to Franklin and said that the army was in a very 
critical situation ; that it required generalship to ex- 



AN INCIDENT. 97 



tricate it ; that under Banks it would probably be 
captured or destroyed ; and proposed to put Banks on 
board of a steamer, and send him to J^ew Orleans, 
and that Franklin should take command. "And 
my men, general," he said, "will stand by you to 
the last man." Of course Franklin treated it as a 
joke, and laughed it off. But there can be no doubt 
that the officer was in earnest. 

General Banks did not command the confidence 
of his troops, especially of the Western men. They 
generally spoke of him as ^^Mr. Banks." It was a 
great pity that his undoubted talent could not hav^e 
been utilized in the civil service. As it turned out, 
he was perhaps the most striking instance in our 
service of the grave, almost fatal, mistake we made 
at the beginning of the war. He had been a good 
Speaker, so we made him a major-general ; he had 
roused a certain interest in Massachusetts in her 
militia, so we gave him command of armies, and 
sent him out to meet trained soldiers like Stonewall 
Jackson and Dick Taylor. The result was a fore- 
gone conclusion. 

5 



CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

Low Water, — The Fleet in Danger. — We fall back upon Alexandria. 
— Things look Gloomy. — Bailey builds a Dam in ten Days. — Saves 
the Fleet. — A Skirmish. — Smith defeats Polignac. — Unpopularity 
of Foreign Officers. — A Novel Bridge. — Leave of Absence. — A 
Year in Virginia. — Am ordered again to New Orleans. 

The Eed River had now fallen very low. The 
gun -boats had great difficulty in descending the 
stream. One chilly evening, as we stood round the 
head-quarters camp-fire, word was brought us that 
one of Porter's best iron-clads was fast aground in 
the stream, and that they had tried in vain to get 
her off. 1 turned laughingly to Bailey, and said, 
"Bailey, can't you build a dam and get her off?" 
alluding to what he had done at Port Hudson. 
Bailey followed me to my tent and said, " Seriously, 
major, I think I could get that ship off, and I should 
like to try." I went immediately to the general, 
and got a letter from him to Porter, and sent Bailey 
to the grounded ship. She was built in compart- 
ments. He found them breaking in the partitions. 



LOSS OF GUN-BOAT. 99 

He remonstrated, and said, " Pump out one compart- 
ment, then shut it hermetically, and the confined air 
will help to buoy up the ship." The navy men, nat- 
urally enough, resented the interference of an out- 
sider. Bailey gave Porter Franklin's letter. Porter 
said, "Well, major, if you can dam better than I 
can, you must be a good hand at it, for I have been 
d — g all night." Bailey had not met with a very 
encouraging reception. He was one of those seri- 
ous men, who, as Sydney Smith said, require a sur- 
gical operation to get a joke into their heads. He 
returned to camp, and reported to me that Porter 
had insulted him. " What did he say, Bailey ?" He 
told me; wdiereupon I explained to him the joke, 
and he was perfectly satisfied. " Oh, if that's what 
he meant, it's all right !" The ship was not got off. 
She was blown up and abandoned. 

From Grand Ecore we fell back upon Alexandria. 
Franklin was put in command of the movement, and 
Bailey selected our line of march. We started at 
dark, and marched all night. But the Confederates 
were on the watch. They threatened our rear, and 
compelled us to halt, and deploy, while they hurried 
a strong force to take position at Kane's Ferry. 
Here we had a sharp skirmish. The position is a 



lOO CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

very strong one, the stream not being fordable at 
the Ferry. We crossed two brigades higher up. 
Moving slowly through the woods, for there were 
no roads, they struck the rebels on the left flank, 
and dislodged them. The fight was very sharp for a 
time. Colonel Fessenden, afterward brigadier-gen- 
eral, commanding a Maine regiment, and gallantly 
leading it, lost a leg in this affair. 

But a severer trial awaited the fleet. About a 
mile above Alexandria the river shoots over a rap- 
id, the Falls of Alexandria. On this shoal there 
was about five feet of water, and the river was fall- 
ing. The boats drew from seven to nine feet. The 
floods come down with great rapidity in the Red 
River. One night's rain would have given the ships 
plenty of water. Twenty -four hours' hard rain raises 
it twenty feet. But the rain would not come. 
Things looked gloomy enough for the fleet. Bailey 
came to me and said that he could build a dam in 
ten days, and get those ships out. The river was 
six hundred and sixty -six feet wide at the Falls. 
Franklin sent me to Porter with the proposition. 
Porter said that it was not worth while — " It will 
rain to-night or to-morrow." To-night and to-mor- 
row came, and it did not rain, and still the river fell. 



RED RIVER DAM. loi 

Again Franklin sent me to Porter. I found him 
unwell and despondent. " Tell General Franklin," 
he said, " that if he will build a dam or any thing 
else, and get me out of this scrape, I'll be eternally 
grateful to him." I returned to Franklin. "Now 
go to Banks, and get his permission." I found 
Banks closeted with General Hunter. It was re- 
ported that the Government had become anxious 
about our command, and had sent Hunter down to 
examine and report upon our condition. I stated 
what was proposed. Banks turned to Hunter and 
said, " What do you think of it, general ?" Hunter 
replied that he thought it impracticable, "But if 
Franklin recommends it, try it ; for he is one of the 
best engineers in the army." Banks said, " Tell the 
general to give the necessary orders." The orders 
were given. Maine and Wisconsin regiments, prin- 
cipally lumbermen, were detailed for the work. In 
ten days the dam was built, the water rose, and the 
fleet came over in safety. 

The rebels made a great mistake in not interfer- 
ing with our work. Had they done so, they might 
have embarrassed us seriously on the left bank of 
the river, opposite Alexandria. But they never 
fired a shot. We were told that they laughed at the 



I02 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

idea of damming the Red River, and said that we 
might as well try to dam the Mississippi. "We would 
have done this, had it been necessary. 

Bailey handled water as a lumberman handles his 
axe. One of the gun-boats was aground, hanging by 
the stern some little way above the Falls. They 
tugged at her with all sorts of mechanical contriv- 
ances, but in vain. In two hours Bailey built a lit- 
tle " wing-dam," he called it, turned the current un- 
der the stern of the vessel where she hung, washed 
out the sand, and the ship floated off. 

Porter told me that if Bailey got his fleet out he 
would never rest till he was made a brigadier-gen- 
eral. He kept his word. The Government pro- 
moted him. The naval ofiicers subscribed, and gave 
him a sword of honor and a service of plate. He 
deserved it all. 

The fleet saved, we renewed our march to the 
Mississippi. It was made without incident, except 
that Smith defeated the rebels in a skirmish on the 
Atchaf alaya. He practiced a ruse upon them : con- 
cealed a brigade in the deep dry ditches that inter- 
sect the sugar-fields there, then sent his skirmishers 
out. The rebs drove them in and pursued them ; 
when up rose the men in the ditches, poured in a 



BRIDGE OF STEAMBOATS, 103 

deadly fire, and took two hundred prisoners. We 
were not again troubled by tlie enemy. 

Prince Polignac commanded the rebels upon this 
occasion. It was reported that he had come to Loui- 
siana expecting that the Confederacy would become 
a monarchy ; and it probably would have done so, 
had the Kebellion succeeded. I afterward heard that 
his defeat was not very disagreeable to his brother 
officers, for he was not popular with them. Indeed, 
very few foreign officers were popular on either side. 
Both Union and rebel officers were very much dis- 
posed to look upon it as a family quarrel, and want- 
ed no interference from outsiders. 

"We crossed the Atchafalaya by a novel bridge 
constructed of steamboats. This, too, was Bailey's 
work. He anchored them side by side, the bows 
level with each other, and placed planks across them. 
The whole army, with its baggage-wagons and artil- 
leiy, crossed safely and rapidly. A steam - whistle 
sounded, and in ten minutes the bridge had disap- 
peared, and every boat was under full headway to 
its destination. 

The writer's connection with the Department of 
the Gulf now ceased for a year. He obtained leave 
of absence, and went JSTorth. But he had scarcely 



104 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

arrived there when Early made his daring march 
upon Washington. My leave was revoked, and I 
was ordered to report to Major-general Gillmore. 
For a year I remained in Yirginia, most of the time 
in Norfolk, for Gillmore had been thrown from his 
horse, and was unable to take the field in command 
of the Nineteenth Army Corps, as had been intend- 
ed, and I had been assigned to a different duty. 
Early in the spring of 1865, on application of Briga- 
dier-general T. "W. Sherman, I was ordered again to 
New Orleans. 



AT GRANT'S HEAD-QUARTERS. 105 



CHAPTEE IX. 

Visit to Grant's Head-quarters. — His Anecdotes of Army Life. — 
Banks relieved. — Canby in Command. — Bailey at Mobile. — Death of 
Bailey. — Canby as a Civil Governor. — Confiscated Property. — Pro- 
poses to rebuild Levees. — Is stopped by Sheridan. — Canby appeals. 
— \% sustained, but too late. — Levees destroyed by Floods. — Conflict 
of Jurisdiction. — Action of President Johnson. — Sheridan abolishes 
Canby 's Provost Marshal's Department. — Canby asks to be recalled. 
— Is ordered to Washington. — To Galveston. — To Richmond. — To 
Charleston. — Is murdered by the Modocs. — His Character. 

Shortly after my arrival at the North, I paid a 
visit of a few days to Colonel Badeau at Grant's 
head-quarters at City Point. Badeau had been with 
me on Sherman's staff. I staid at head-quarters in a 
tent reserved for guests, and messed with the general 
and his staff. Grant has the reputation of being a 
taciturn man, and he is generally so. But when 
seated on a summer's evening under the awning in 
front of his tent with his staff, and, perhaps, a few 
friends about him, he took his share of the conver- 
sation. He was full of anecdote, especially of army 
life. He talked very freely, not hesitating to express 



lo6 CAAIF, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

his opinions of men and things. Grant contended 
that no commanding officer could succeed in the long 
run, if he were not an honest and an honorable man. 
He did not care what were his talents, he was sure 
to come to grief, and injure the cause sooner or later. 
But Butler took different ground. He held that he 
could appoint clever and energetic officers to com- 
mand, and benefit by their talents, while he could 
prevent their dishonesty from injuring the cause. 
Grant was undoubtedly right, and Butler wrong. 

One evening, as we sat before his tent. Grant ob- 
served that he had that day sent orders to remove a 
certain general from high command in the West. I 
expressed my surprise, and said that I had always 
understood, and from army men too, that the officer 
in question was one of the best of our volunteer gen- 
erals. Grant took his cigar from his mouth, and re- 
marked, in his quiet way, " He's too much mixed up 
with cotton." 

Politics makes strange bed-fellows. What a pity 
that President Grant was unable to carry into his 
civil appointments the same admirable principle 
upon which General Grant acted so inflexibly and 
so successfully in his military appointments ! The 
officer whom he removed from command as "too 



GENERAL JOSEPH BAILEY. 107 

mucli mixed up with cotton " lie soon after appoint- 
ed, under strong party pressure, to high civil office. 

On my return to New Orleans, I found that Banks 
had been relieved, and Canby now commanded the 
Department of the Gulf. He was absent, engaged 
in the campaign against Mobile, which resulted in 
the capture of that city. Here Bailey again distin- 
guished himself. The bay was strewed with torpe- 
does. Bailey had no fear of torpedoes. He told 
me that he had often navigated the Upper Missis- 
sippi when enormous cakes of ice, swept along by 
the rapid current, threatened to destroy the boat, but 
that it was easy enough by some mechanical contriv- 
ance to avoid them. He thought that torpedoes 
might be treated in the same way. He showed his 
faith by his works. He took the quartermaster's 
boats up without accident. The navy followed his 
lead, and safely. But the Admiral, changing his 
mind, ordered some of the boats back. In backing 
down, two were blown up and sunk. 

But the war was now near its close. Bailey was 
shortly afterward mustered out of service, and return- 
ed to civil life. He removed from Wisconsin to 
Missouri, and settled in one of the border counties. 
Here he was elected sheriff. His end was a sad one. 



lo8 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

With his usual daring, he attempted to arrest two 
noted desperadoes, horse - thieves, single-handed. 
They murdered him. He had not lived in vain. 
He had rendered good service to his country. 

To return to Louisiana. The writer was now pro- 
moted to General Canby's staff, and became adju- 
tant-general of the Department. Canby enjoyed the 
full confidence of the Government, and most justly. 
He had an exceedingly important command, extend- 
ing from St. Louis to the Gulf, and from Florida to 
Texas. We had one hundred and eighty -seven thou- 
sand men upon our rolls. Canby was an excellent 
military commander, but his forte lay in civil gov- 
ernment. Never was a Department better governed 
than was Louisiana in his day. A kind-hearted, be- 
nevolent gentleman, he gave one half of his pay to 
the rebel poor. Often have I seen his wife driving 
about IN'ew Orleans, accompanied by a Sister of Char- 
ity, dispensing his bounty. A clear-headed, just 
man, he governed that turbulent city with w^isdom 
and justice, and with unflinching firmness. There 
were no riots in his day. More than once we were 
told that a riot was planned for the next day. Can- 
by sent for Sherman ; that night a battery would be 
quietly marched up from Jackson Barracks, and sta- 



CONFEDERATE PROPERTY. 109 

tioned out of sight in a cotton-press. Yeiy early in 
the morning a company of cavalry picketed their 
horses in Esplanade Street. The quiet citizens saw 
nothing unusual, but the would-be rioters of course 
knew what had been done, and there was no riot. 
Can by was relieved ; Sherman got leave of absence ; 
and within a month a riot took place. 

General Canby has saved millions of money to 
the United States. In these days of barefaced raids 
upon the Treasury, under color of bogus Southern 
claims, Canby 's foresight and care are brought out 
in strong relief. When the war was ended, he re- 
turned all confiscated rebel property to its owners, 
but he took from them a release to the United States 
for all claim for rent or damage during our occupa- 
tion. These men's mouths are now closed. The 
only exception he made was made most reluctantly 
under the orders of Sheridan. That great soldier 
does not shine in civil government as he does in the 
field. When he arrived in New Orleans, he told 
General Canby that he came there to take military 
command ; that as for civil matters he knew nothing 
about them, and left them all to Canby. Before a 
month had passed an order came that General Canby 
would please report why he did not return the Me- 



no CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

tairie Ridge Eace-course to its owners. This course 
was owned bj gamblers. Tlie gamblers of New Or- 
leans are an institution and a power in that citj. 
Canby replied with the indorsement, " Respectfully 
returned with a copy of the order bearing date (a 
month back) returning the Metairie Ridge Race- 
course to its owners on the usual conditions." The 
order came back, " General Canby will return the 
Metairie Ridge Race -course without condition." 
Canby felt deeply hurt. His carefully devised and 
impartially executed plan to protect the Treasury 
had been frustrated, and this in favor of a lot of 
gamblers. I do not doubt that these men are now 
before Congress as " loyal citizens," with their hum- 
ble petition for reimbursement for the occupation of 
the race-course and the destruction of the fences. 
^ Had Canby been permitted to have his own way, 
the levees in Louisiana would have been rebuilt in 
the fall of 1865, millions of money saved to the 
United States, and much suffering and vagabondage 
among the inhabitants avoided. In 1862 Butler had 
confiscated the crops on many abandoned estates. 
This property, when sold, realized a fund which was 
turned over to the successive Department command- 
ers, to be used for various public purposes. Banks 



THE LEVEES. m 



gave a monster concert, with artillery accompani- 
ments, out of it, and balls, to dance the fair Creoles 
into loyalty. Canby proposed to rebuild the levees. 
In his day the fund amounted to about eight hun- 
dred thousand dollars. He thought that this money, 
raised in Louisiana, could with propriety be expend- 
ed in repairing the levees in Louisiana. He said ex- 
pressly that the rebels had no right to this expendi- 
ture — as they had sown, so must they reap ; 'but that 
it was in the interest of the United States and of hu- 
manity that he proposed to rebuild the levees. That 
if this were done, the people would be occupied, con- 
tented, and quiet, they w^ould be no expense to the 
Government, and their crops would add to the gen- 
eral wealth of the country. That if it were not done, 
the plantations would be overflowed, the crops ru- 
ined, the inhabitants discontented, the value of the 
crops lost to the country, and the Hnited States com- 
pelled, as a matter of humanity, to issue rations to 
the starving people. In the month of October, 1865, 
every thing was ready, the unemployed negroes en- 
rolled, our negro regiments detailed, and the work 
about to commence, when it was stopped by an order 
from General Sheridan. Of course Sheridan did not 
do this from any mere caprice. He had his reasons, 



CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



and to his mind thej were conclusive. But they 
were purely technical and narrow. He said that the 
fund referred to did not belong to the Department ; 
that it belonged to the Treasury, or at least to the 
Quartermaster-general, and could not be used with- 
out his assent. Canby was always most reluctant to 
appeal from his superior officer to higher authority, 
but he thought that in this instance the interests of 
his Department, and those of the United States itself, 
were too deeply involved for him to accept Sheri- 
dan's decision. He appealed to Washington, and 
was sustained. But the Government, instead of or- 
dering him to commence the work at once, sent out a 
board of engineers — Barnard at the head — to survey 
the levees, and agree upon plans for repairing them. 
At length all these most unnecessary formalities were 
got through with, and Canby was ordered to proceed 
with the work. This was promptly done. But it 
was now January, instead of October. In February 
the water rose, and swept away all that had been 
done. All the evils predicted by Canby now came 
upon the country. And not for that year only, but 
for several succeeding years, the Government was 
compelled to feed a suffering, discontented, and tur- 
bulent population.) 



CONFISCATED COTTON. 113 

^ Several nice and novel legal questions arose on tlie 
termination of the war in reference to confiscated 
property. These were determined by General Canby 
so wisely and so justly that the Quartermaster-gen- 
eral not unfrequently sent to him for copies of his 
orders as guides for the Department at Washington 
in its own decisions. I recollect one question par- 
ticularly, which brought him into conflict with the 
United States District Judge. It will be remember- 
ed that at the close of the war an immense quantity 
of cotton was found stored in the by-ways of the Con- 
federacy, especially far up the Red River. Part of 
this cotton was undoubtedly liable to confiscation, 
but the greater part was not. Treasury agents 
thronged all over the South. The character of these 
men "left much to be desired," as the Frenchman 
politely puts it. They were " on the make." Their 
object was to prove all cotton liable to confiscation, 
for the law gave them a large percentage of the pro- 
ceeds. The amount of perjury committed by these 
men, and by the professional perjurers whom they 
employed, was fearful. The effect was demoralizing 
to the last degree, and exasperated the inhabitants ; 
while it was the object of the Government, and the 
earnest desire of the victorious I^orth, to pacify the 



114 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

South by dealing not only justly, but generously, by 
it. Canby felt this, and with his usual sagacity and 
foresight made a proposition to the Secretary of the 
Treasury, which, if adopted, would have saved the 
Government millions in money, and more than mill- 
ions in peace and good- will. He proposed that ports 
should be designated on the Mississippi for the re- 
ceipt of cotton; that every pound arriving there 
should pay the Government twenty -five cents, or 
fifty cents (any thing that the Government might 
designate), and that no questions should be asked as 
to its origin. Mr. M'CuUoch replied that it was an 
admirable plan, but that there were reasons why it 
could not be adopted. The reason, I fear, was the 
influence brought to bear at Washington by the nas- 
cent race of carpet-baggers. There was money in 
the Ti'easury-agent system. . 

This system led, as I have said, to a collision be- 
tween the military and the judicial authorities in 
New Orleans, which in any other hands than Can- 
by's might have been serious. M'Culloch wrote to 
the general asking him to sustain his agents with the 
military power in their seizure of cotton. Canby 
of course replied that he would do so. Shortly aft- 
erward an agent applied to us for a military force. 



UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT. 1 15 

He had seized a lot of cotton, and bronglit it to N'ew 
Orleans. The owner, an alleged Union man, had 
applied to the United States District Court, and the 
United States Marshal had been ordered to take pos- 
session of it. He attempted to do so, but was, of 
course, repulsed by the military, the city being still 
under martial law. The judge thereupon issued an 
order for Canby to appear before him, and show 
cause why he held the cotton against the process of 
the court. The order was an impertinent one ; for 
the judge knew well enough that the city was still 
under martial law. The judge was that Durell who 
afterward came to grief. But Canby always showed 
the greatest respect to the judiciary. I remember, 
as if it were yesterday, seeing him start for the 
court-room at the appointed time, in full uniform, 
accompanied by Major De Witt Clinton, his judge- 
advocate. His return to the order of the court was 
to my mind conclusive. He said, substantially, that 
the United States District Court was a creation of 
the law ; that it possessed precisely those powers 
which had been conferred upon it by Congress, and 
no others ; that if this cotton had been captured by 
the navy on the high seas, he should have surren- 
dered it at once on the order of the judge, for the 



Il6 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

court was clothed with admiralty jurisdiction, but 
that it had no military jurisdiction, and that he had 
no right to surrender, and might be held responsi- 
ble for surrendering, powers which, under martial 
law, were vested in him alone. The judge reserved 
his decision. The claimant's lawyers telegraphed to 
the President ; and Johnson, who was then begin- 
ning to coquet with the Democrats, contrary to Stan- 
ton's advice, and without waiting for Canby's report, 
ordered the cotton to be given up, to the general's 
great satisfaction ; for it soiled the fingers of every 
one who touched it. _I7 

General Canby had now been thwarted twice by 
General Sheridan in purely civil matters — matters 
belonging properly to the commander of the De- 
partment. He felt as if his usefulness were gone, 
and prepared a letter to the Adjutant-general asking 
to be relieved from his command, and ordered else- 
where. He showed me this letter. I felt that his 
loss to the Department would be irreparable, and I 
persuaded him to withhold it. But shortly after- 
ward Sheridan again interfered with the civil gov- 
ernment of the city, and this time by breaking up 
the provost - marshal's department of General Can- 
by's own staff. It is a matter of great delicacy for 



GENERAL CANBY. 117 



one general to interfere with tlie staff of another. 
Canby felt deeply hurt, and told me that he should 
forward his letter to Washington. Of course I 
could no longer object; for it seemed to me that 
self-respect left him no choice. He was relieved 
at once, for he was all-powerful with Stanton, who 
had the highest esteem and regard for him, and 
unbounded confidence in his integrity and wisdom. 
He was made president of a most important board 
on war claims, sitting at "Washington. But shortly 
afterward there was disturbance in Texas, and Can- 
by was immediately sent there. Again, there was 
disturbance in Yirginia, and Canby was transferred 
to Eichmond. Then came difiiculty in South Caro- 
lina, and at once Canby was ordered to Charleston. 
Wherever he went, order and tranquilHty followed 
his footsteps. 

This wise, great, and good man lost his life mis- 
erably. He fell a victim to the Peace Commission. 
He commanded the Department in which Captain 
Jack and those wretched Modocs gave us so much 
trouble. Although the force operating against the 
Indians numbered but five hundred men, and the 
weather was so severe that the ink froze in his tent, 
Canby thought it his duty to go in person to the 



CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



" Lava Beds." Here lie was rapidly unearthing the 
savages from "their caves and dens in the rocks." 
when the Peace Commission begged him to send 
the Indians a flag of truce and invite them to a 
"talk." He replied that it was useless; that he 
knew the Indians far better than those gentlemen 
could ; and that the best and most humane method 
was to follow up his military advantages. They en- 
treated, and appealed to his love of peace. He yield- 
ed, went unarmed and without escort to the confer- 
ence, and was murdered by the savages. Thus died 
one of the best, ablest, and purest men the war had 
brought to the front. 

The writer left Louisiana in June, 1866, and short- 
ly afterward, on his own request, was mustered out 
of the service. He looks back with pleasure to 
the years passed in that lovely and fruitful land. 
He regrets the evil days which have fallen upon it, 
and can not but think that the upright and honor- 
able men whom he knew there — and there are plenty 
of them among its inhabitants — must regret the loss 
of the rule of justice, law, order, and economy under 
Canby, when they contrast it with the infamous rule 
of the carpet-baggers — fraud and corruption on one 
side met by violence and intimidation on the other. 



GENERAL DIX. 119 



CHAPTEE X. 

The Writer appointed Assistant Secretary of Legation to Paris. — Pre- 
sented to the Emperor. — Court Balls. — Diplomatic Dress. — Opening 
of Corps Legislatif . — Opening of Parliament. — King of the Belgians. 
— Emperor of Austria. — King of Prussia. — Queen Augusta. — Em- 
peror Alexander. — Attempt to assassinate him. — Ball at Russian 
Embassy. — Resignation of General Dix. 

In October, 1866, at the request of General Canby, 
Mr. Seward appointed the writer to be Assistant 
Secretary of Legation at Paris. Johnson was then 
President, but he very properly left all these minor 
appointments in the State Department to its chief. 
Frederic Seward told me that it was impossible to 
have a better friend at their court than General Can- 
by — " they always accepted his bills at sight." 

General Dix had then been named Minister to 
France, but had not sailed. Mr. Bigelow still filled 
the office. On presenting my credentials, he re- 
quested me to await the arrival of the General before 
entering upon my duties, that the proposed changes 
might all be made at the same time. 

Late in December General Dix arriv^ed, and was 



120 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

presented. Court carriages were sent for tlie min- 
ister, and he was accompanied bj the secretaries of 
legation, and by the " Introducteiir des Ambassa- 
deurs" in gorgeous uniform. Those were the hal- 
cyon days of the diplomatic service, before Congress 
had come to the conclusion that the safety of the 
republic depended upon its foreign representatives 
being dressed in swallow-tail coats. We were then 
permitted to dress like other gentlemen of the diplo- 
matic corps in the same grade. 

The Emperor was always happy in his reception of 
the diplomates accredited to him. The custom was 
to send in advance to the Minister of Foreign Affairs 
a copy of the address to be delivered, that the Em- 
peror's reply might be prepared. These speeches, 
under ordinary circumstances, might be stereotyped : 
change the names, and one will answer for another. 
After the formal addresses, an informal conversation 
followed. General Dix then presented the secreta- 
ries. The Emperor spoke Enghsh very well, and 
liked to ventilate it. He did not speak it perfectly, 
however, as was claimed by his enthusiastic admirers. 
He translated French into English, as we so often 
translate English into French. He said, for instance, 
to Colonel Hay, " You have made ze war in ze Uni- 



COURT BALLS. 121 



ted States ?" (" Yous avez fait la guerre f ") mean- 
ing, "Did you serve?" Hay was strongly tempted 
to tell him that it was not lie ; it was Jeff Davis. 

After the presentation to the Emperor, we paid our 
respects to the Empress. That charming and beau- 
tiful woman was then in the zenith of her beauty 
and grace. She received us in her bonnet and walk- 
ing-dress, as she had come from mass ; for in Catho- 
lic countries diplomatic presentations generally take 
place on Sunday. Nor in Catholic countries only, 
for in England the Prince of Wales sometimes re- 
ceives on that day. The Empress too speaks En- 
glish, and with less accent than the Emperor, though 
not so fluently. 

The imperial court in 1866-'67 was at the height 
of its splendor. France was ajDparently prosperous^ 
and powerful, and Paris reigned the queen -city of 
the world. All nations paid her willing tribute. , 
She was preparing for the Exhibition of 1867, the 
most successful ever held, except our own at Phila- 
delphia. The winter was unusually gay, the palace 
setting the example. As a rule, the Emperor gave 
four grand balls during the season. They were very 
magnificent, and would have been very pleasant ex- 
cept for the great crowd. But those balls were given 

6 



122 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

principally to the military, and the garrison of Paris 
thronged them to the number of two or three thou- 
sand. Some of the subordinate officers were wholly 
unused to any other society than that of the barracks, 
and they brought their barrack manners with them, 
crowding, pushing, treading upon the ladies' dress- 
es, scratching their shoulders with their epaulets. 
When the supper -room was opened, the Centgarde 
on duty at the door had great difficulty in keeping 
back the hungry crowd. Once they actually broke 
through and rushed in. The sentries were there- 
upon doubled, but even then were compelled to 
threaten to report the most prominent disturbers 
to the Emperor. Every private in the Centgardes 
ranked as an officer of the army. 

It may interest some of my readers to know how 
presentations were made at these balls. The United 
States Minister was allowed to present twenty -six 
♦persons in all. They were selected generally upon 
the principle of first come, first served ; but the mat- 
ter rested wholly in his discretion. No one had a 
right to a presentation. Mr. Seward settled this in 
a clear and positive dispatch to Mr. Dayton, and his 
instructions now regulate the action of our ministers 
in most of the courts of Europe. Occasionally we 



PRESENTATIONS AT COURT. 123 

asked for one or two extra presentations. The in- 
quiry was then generally made, "Is it a young and 
pretty woman ?" If it were, there was no difficul- 
ty, for the Empress, like other ladies, was pleased to 
have her balls set off with beautiful and well-dressed 
women. American ladies were always well received 
by her for this reason. Her balls were sometimes 
called by the envious '^ hals americainsP 

The persons to be presented were arranged round 
one of the rooms at the Tuileries. The Emperor 
entered and passed down the line, each person being 
named to him. He sometimes stopped, though rare- 
ly, and addressed a few words to one of the pres- 
entees. The Empress followed in the same manner. 
She exacted that every lady should be in full even- 
ing dress, and if by chance one slipped in not decol- 
letee, the minister was pretty sure to hear of it. Gen- 
eral Dix was once asked to present a young lady 
with her mother. He consented. She turned out 
to be a child of fourteen. Before many days he 
heard that the Empress had said that she did not 
receive children. 

But the Empress's Mondays, ^^^^'^5 liindis^ were 
charming. They were not unpleasantly crowded, 
and they were composed exclusively of people who 



124 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

knew how to behave themselves. Frequently they 
were musical parties, and there one heard the best 
musical talent of the world. No money was paid to 
the leading artists ; for the theory is that the honor 
of singing before the sovereign is sufficient; but a 
bracelet or other piece of jewelry was sent to the 
singer, and always of value, for the Emperor was 
very generous — too much so for his own interests 
and those of his family, as events have shown. 

The jpetits lundis were a paradise for our Amer- 
ican diplomates. There we wore our swallow-tail 
coats, with black tights and silk stockings. The 
most rabid anti-uniformist could not object to that. 
To wear swallow-tail at one of the balls, however, 
was by no means a pleasant duty. After one or two 
experiments our secretaries gave up going. The 
French officers — not those of high rank, of course- 
would stare with all the impertinence they could 
muster, and take the opportunity to jostle them ac- 
cidentally in the crowd. It was very different in 
London. If one of us went to a ball at Buckingham 
Palace in mufti, the page at the door simply asked, 
" United States, sir ?" and he passed in without dif- 
ficulty. Of course every one present noticed the 
dress, but no one appeared to do so. They evident- 



OPENING OF THE CORPS LEGISLATIF. 125 

ly felt sorry for the poor devil who found himself 
in such an awkward ^x^ and wished to make it as 
easy for him as possible. French politeness did not 
shine by the contrast. 

Early in the winter the Emperor opened the Corps 
Legislatif. In all constitutional monarchies this is 
an occasion of great ceremony and splendor. A hall 
in the Louvre was used for the purpose. All the 
great bodies of state attended in their gorgeous uni- 
forms. Senators, deputies, judges, members of the 
Academy and of the Institute, marshals, admirals 
— every thing that France possessed of glorious in 
arms, or eminent in literature, science, art, and states- 
manship, was congregated there. When all was 
ready, the Empress, attended by the ladies of the im- 
perial family, and by her ladies in waiting, walked 
up the whole length of the centre aisle to her seat 
on the throne, amidst the indescribable enthusiasm 
of the audience. Her beauty, her grace, and her 
stately bearing carried the enthusiasm to its height. 
You would have sworn that every man there was 
ready to die for his sovereign. Within less than 
four years she sought in vain for one of them to 
stand by her in her hour of danger. 

The opening of the Corps Legislatif, splendid and 



126 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

interesting as it was, did not compare in either re- 
spect — in American eyes, at least — with the open- 
ing of Parliament by the Queen in person. She has 
done this so rarely of late that, when she does ap- 
pear, the interest and excitement in London are very 
great. The ceremony takes place in the House of 
Lords. The peers are in their robes of office, scarlet 
and ermine. Each particular robe is ugly enough, 
very much like red flannel and cat-skin ; but the ef- 
fect of all together is very fine. The peeresses are 
in full dress. The diplomatic corps are present in 
their rich uniforms. The princes enter and take 
their seats as lords. That graceful and beautiful 
woman, the Princess of Wales — perhaps the most 
beautiful woman in England — and the Princess 
Mary and the Duchess of Edinburgh, follow and 
take their seats upon the wool -sack facing the 
throne. When all is ready, the Queen, preceded by 
the white rod and the black rod (they call them the 
"sticks" in England), the lord chancellor and the 
lord chamberlain, and all her high officers of state, 
appears and seats herself upon the throne, the Prin- 
cess Louise and the Princess Beatrice supporting her 
on either side. Short and stout as is the Queen, 
she has the most graceful and stately walk perhaps 



SOVEREIGNS VISITING EXHIBITION. 127 

in Europe. It is a treat to see her move. Then the 
lower doors are opened ; there is a rush and a scram- 
ble, and loud voices are heard, and the Commons of 
England, headed by their Speaker, the very body for 
whom all this show and state and splendor are got 
up, crowd into a narrow space behind a railing, and 
there stand while the Queen reads her speech. It 
seems strange, when one reflects that the Commons 
really govern England, to see them shut out in the 
cold as if they were not fit to associate with the dis- 
tinguished company present. When the speech is 
finished, the Speaker bows, the Queen descends from 
the throne, the Commons return to their House, and 
the pageant is ended. 

The Great Exhibition opened on the 1st of May, 
1867. It was not nearly ready, but was opened 
punctually to the day with all the well - arranged 
ceremony for which the French are noted. The 
sovereigns of Europe began to flock to Paris. " The 
Grand Duchess of Gerolstein" was then in the full 
tide of success at one of the theatres. It was odd 
to note that among the first visits the great roy- 
alties paid (the Emperor of Russia and the King 
of Prussia) was one to " The Grand Duchess." 
The minor sovereigns, the kinglings, rarely went; 



128 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

and when they did, tliey saw nothing amusing 
in it. 

The diplomatic corps had admirable opportunities 
to see the different sovereigns visiting Paris. It is 
the custom for a monarch to receive the diplomatic 
corps accredited to the capital at which he is a guest. 
We stood in a circle, and, while the royal visitor 
talked to our own minister and to those near him on 
either side, we had excellent opportunities to study 
his features, expression, and manners. The most 
agreeable of them all, with an apt word for every 
one, was the King of the Belgians. He had a great 
deal to say to General Dix about Mr. Seward, whom 
he had known, and the port of Antwerp as con- 
venient for American shipping. He spoke English 
admirably. He was accompanied by the Queen, a 
young and pretty woman, who, by-the-way, was the 
only sovereign lady who came to the Exposition, 
much to the Empress's disappointment, and some- 
what, it was said, to her mortification. Xext in tact 
to the King of the Belgians came the Emperor of 
Austria, a small, well-made, military - looking man, 
with mo9f polished manners. He spoke to me — for 
General Dix was then temporarily absent — of his 
brother, the Emperor Maximilian, and expressed his 



EMPEROR ALEXANDER. 129 

gratitude to our Government for its efforts to save 
his life. Later, while charge at London, I met the 
Empress of Germany. She, too, has the gift of say- 
ing the right thing in the right place. I heard .her 
conversation with two or three of my colleagues who 
stood near me. It was always happy. To me she 
spoke of all that the Legation at Paris had done to 
protect ^^mes ^auvres Allemands dans ces tristes, ces 
penibles cir Constances P She was glad to have the 
opportunity to thank me in person, and wished me 
to convey her thanks to Mr. Washburne. 

But the chief guest, the man to whom all eyes 
were turned, was the Emperor of Russia, a pale, 
handsome, silent, gentlemanly - looking man. For 
him reviews were held, gala operas given, and mag- 
nificent fetes at the Tuileries and at the Hotel de 
Yille. I doubt if the world ever saw a more beau- 
tiful fete than that given to him by the Empress at 
the Tuileries. It was summer, the month of June. 
The gardens of the palace were closed to the public. 
The flower-beds (the flowers were then in full bloom) 
were bordered with gas-jets, the trees were festoon- 
ed with variegated lamps, the fountains pl^ed, and 
electric lights — blue, pink, and yellow — were thrown 
alternately upon the sparkling waters. It was veiy 

6* 



130 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

beautiful. And when, at midniglit, tlie Empress, ac- 
companied by a number of ladies, and by the Emper- 
ors and their suites, descended into the gardens, and 
the electric light flashed on their bright dresses and 
jewels, and brilliant uniforms, the effect was fairy- 
like. 

The review was next in order. Sixty thousand 
men passed before the Emperors without check or 
delay. The King of Prussia was present, accompa- 
nied by Bismarck and Moltke. Bismarck even then 
attracted much attention. I have rarely seen a finer- 
looking man. More than six feet high, large and 
powerful in proportion, with a grand head well set 
upon the shoulders, he looks like Agamemnon — 
" king of men." 

It was on the return from this review that the 
Emperor of Russia was shot at by a Pole. Fortu- 
nately, he was not hit. The only creature hurt was 
the horse of one of the equerries. The blood spurt- 
ed from a wonnd in the animal's neck upon the Em- 
peror's second son, who was in the carriage with 
him. The father's only thought was for his son; 
and, leaning forward, he laid his hand tenderly upon 
him while he anxiously inquired if he was wounded. 
It was reported that the Emperor of the French 



BALL AT THE RUSSIAN EMBASSY. 131 

turned to his imperial guest, and said, " Sire, we have 
been under fire together for the first time to-day ;" 
to which the Emperor replied, with much solemnity 
of manner, " Sire, we are in the hands of Provi- 
dence." 

That evening I saw him at a ball at the Eussian 
embassy. It was very small, not more than two hun- 
dred persons present. He looked pale and distrait^ 
evidently anticipating, with some apprehension, the 
effect to be produced in Russia, and upon her rela- 
tions with France, when the news should reach St. 
Petersburg. Madame Haussmann, the wife of the 
Prefect of the Seine, a well-meaning woman, but 
who did not shine precisely by her tact, was trying 
to make conversation with him. He looked over 
her head, as if he did not see her, and finally turned 
upon his heel and left her. It was not perhaps po- 
lite, but it was very natural. The Emperor and Em- 
press of the French made extraordinary exertions to 
enliven the ball, but there was a perceptible oppres- 
sion in the air. The would-be assassin was not con- 
demned to death. Strange to say, a French jury 
found " extenuating circumstances." But the French 
sympathize strongly with the Poles ; and I doubt if, 
under any circumstances, a French jury would con- 



132 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

demn to death a Pole who had attempted to murder 
a Russian. 

The Em^Deror of Russia is a man of the highest 
sense of personal honor. When lately he sought an 
interview with the English embassador, and assured 
him on his honor that he had no thought of con- 
quest, or any desire to occupy Constantinople, those 
who know his character believed him implicitly. It 
was reserved for certain ultra Tory journals in Lon- 
don to doubt his word. J^o language would be 
strong enough for these journals to employ if a 
Russian newspaper were to doubt the word of honor 
of Lord Derby or any other prominent English gen- 
tleman. Happily, the Standard and its confreres 
do not yet direct public opinion in England. 

In the fall of 1867, the Exhibition closed with 
great ceremony, and Paris settled down for a time 
to the even tenor of its way. In 1868, General 
Grant was elected President, and was inaugurated 
in 1869. In the spring of this year General Dix 
resigned. He preferred the comforts of his home, 
with the society of his children and grandchildren, 
to the attractions of the imperial court, l^o min- 
ister ever represented the United States with more 
dignity than General Dix. A man of marked abil- 



GENERAL DIX. 133 



ity, an accomplished scholar and gentleman, he pos- 
sessed precisely those qualities which are the most 
highly ]3rized at a court like that of France. The 
ladies, too, of his family shone in their sphere ; a 
matter of much greater importance than is generally 
supposed in our country. The general has left a 
very pleasant impression in France ; and not unfre- 
quently since the fall of the empire I have been 
stopped in the street by some sad looking ex-official 
with inquiries after his health. 



134 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



CHAPTEE XL 

Washburne appointed Minister. — Declaration of "War. — Thiers op- 
poses it. — The United States asked to protect Germans in France. 
— Fish's Instructions. — Assent of French Government given. — 
Paris in War-paint. — The Emperor opposed to War. — Not a Free 
Agent. — His Entourage, — Marshal Le Boeuf. 

In the month of May, 1869, Mr. Washburne ar- 
rived in France, and entered upon the duties of his 
office. In the mean time I had been promoted, at the 
request of General Dix, to be secretary of legation. 
At Mr. Washburne' s request, I was retained in that 
position. Paris was uneasy and restless. Conspira- 
cies against the empire were rife. The Republicans, 
as they called themselves — Radicals is a better name 
for the majority of them — became bold and defiant. 
France was jealous, too, of the renown acquired by 
Prussia at Sadowa. She had been so accustomed to 
consider herself, and to be considered, the first mili- 
tary power in the world, that she could not bear the 
semblance of a rival near the throne. The Emperor 
was suffering from the disease of which he afterward 
died, and no longer governed with " the hand of 



DECLARATION OF WAR. 135 

steel in the glove of silk " always needed in France. 
The Church was alarmed at the rise of a great Prot- 
estant power, and the Empress sympathized with her 
Church. In short, public sentiment had reached 
such a pass in France, or rather in Paris, which is 
France, that the Emperor was compelled to choose 
between war and revolution. He naturally chose 
war. It was deiinitely resolved upon on the 15th 
July, 1870, but not officially declared until the 19th. 
I was charge d'affaires, Mr. Washburne being absent 
at Carlsbad. 

On the 13th of July I went to the sitting of the 
Corps Legislatif to learn what were the prospects of 
war. In the tribune of the diplomatic corps I met 
the Spanish Embassador. He told me that peace 
was assured, as he had persuaded Prince Hohenzol- 
lern to decline the proffered crown of Spain, and that 
now nothing remained to fight about. On the 14:th, 
I went again. I found Lord Lyons there, and, fall- 
ing into conversation with him, he left the imjDres- 
sion upon my mind that there would be war, for the 
proffered mediation of England had failed. Lord 
Lyons had come to the sitting expecting to hear an 
authoritative declaration by the Government, and 
this declaration he thought would be warlike. I at 



136 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

once telegraphed to Mr. Fisli that the chances were 
strongly in favor of war. This, and all our subse- 
quent telegrams in cipher, were delayed by the 
French Government for twenty-four hours, probably 
with a view to decipher them. On the 15th I was 
again at the seance^ and heard the warlike decla- 
ration made by the Government. It was not the 
formal declaration of war, but was equivalent to it. 
Thereupon Mr. Thiers rose, and attempted to address 
the House in a speech deprecating hostilities. The 
scene that followed was indescribable and most dis- 
graceful to any legislative body. The great mass of 
the members sprung to their feet, pointed their fin- 
gers at the orator, yelled, and shouted ''Traitre, trai- 
tre I Allez a Berlin /" The little man stood like a 
rock, and when the tumult had somewhat subsided, 
I could hear his shrill, piping voice raised in solemn 
warning against the step they were about to take. 
The Government had stated that their embassador 
had been insulted by the King of Prussia. Mr. 
Thiers asked that the dispatches might be produced, 
that the Assembly might judge for itself. This the 
Government refused ; and, on a show of hands, but 
twenty members — among whom were Favre, Arago, 
Simon, Pelletan, and others, most of them afterward 



UNITED STATES TO PROTECT GERMANS. 137 

prominent in the Government of the National De- 
fense — voted with Thiers. 

"While the debate was proceeding I was called out 
by the messenger of the Legation, with word that 
the German Embassador was very anxious to see me. 
As soon as the proceedings in the Corps Legislatif 
were ended, I went to the German embassy. The 
embassador told me that he had been instructed by 
his Government to ask the United States Legation 
at Paris to assume the protection of the IS^orth Ger- 
mans in France during the coming war. I saw at 
once the importance of this stej), the compliment 
paid us by a great power like Germany, and the ad- 
vantages to the country. I replied that I felt confi- 
dent that my Government would gladly assume the 
charge ; that if there were no cable across the Atlan- 
tic, and it were necessary to say "Yes" or "No" at 
once, I should say "Yes;" but as there was telegraph- 
ic communication, and I could receive an answer in 
forty-eight hours, I must ask instructions from Mr. 
Fish. He appeared to be disappointed, and inquired 
when I could give him an answer, as he must leave 
Paris in two days. He evidently desired the mat- 
ter to be settled before he left. I told him that I 
thought I should receive a reply within that time. 



138 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

I went at once to the office, ana telegraphed Mr. 
Fish as follows. This telegram, like the other, was 
detained for twenty-four hours by the French Gov- 
ernment. 

♦'Paris, July 15th, ISVO. 

"Fish — Washington: — "War is certain. Can I 
take Prussian subjects in France under our protec- 
tion ? Have promised answer to-morrow. 

" Hoffman.'^ 

On the 17th I received Mr. Fish's answer, as fol- 
lows: 

"Washington, July 16th, 1870. 

"Protection of North Germans in French terri- 
tory by American representative can only be given 
at request of E^orth Germany, and with assent of 
France. Examine request of Mr. Moustier of July 
16th, 1867, to United States to protect French in 
Mexico. Fish." 

On receipt of this instruction, I wrote at once to 
the Duke de Gramont, to ask for the assent of the 
French Government. My note was as follows : 

" Legation of the Fnited States, 
Paris,July 17th, 1870. 

" Sir, — I was requested by the embassador of the 
North German Confederation, before his departure 
from Paris, to take the North German subjects resid- 



UNITED STATES PROTECTS GERMANS. 139 

ing on French territory under the protection of this 
Legation. To-day I am in receipt of a telegram from 
my Government authorizing me to do so, provided 
that it be done with the assent of his majesty's Gov- 
ernment. I have the honor to apply for this assent. 
"I have the honor, etc., etc., etc., 

"WiCKHAM HOFFMAIT. 
" His Excellency the Duke de Gramont, 
Etc., etc., etc." 

The Duke de Gramont replied, on the 18th, that 
the French Government gave its "entire assent," 
whereupon I telegraphed to Mr. Fish as follows : 

" Fish — Washington : — Consented to take E^orth 
Germans under protection on application of embas- 
sador, and with assent of France. ^ * * * Wash- 
burne returns immediately. Hoffman." 

I learned afterward that my note to the Duke de 
Gramont produced quite a sensation in the Emper- 
or's cabinet. The French Government had already 
requested the good offices of Great Britain to protect 
French subjects in !N^orth Germany, and it had fully 
expected that North Germany would make a similar 
request. SjDeculation was therefore rife in official 
circles as to what the action of Count Bismarck 



I40 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

meant. It was supposed tliat he anticipated a gen- 
eral European war, into wliicli Great Britain would 
necessarily be drawn ; and preferred, therefore, to 
ask the good offices of a power which under all cir- 
cumstances was likely to remain neutral. 

The Duke de Gramont was then Minister of For- 
eign Affairs, and was supposed to have had much to 
do with bringing on the war. The story was cur- 
rent in Paris that, when he was embassador at Vi- 
enna, Bismarck represented Prussia. They quarrel- 
ed, and Bismarck remarked of him, "C^est Vhomme 
le plus lete d^ Europe?'' He never forgave it. At 
Vienna he naturally associated with the Yiennese 
aristocracy, who disliked the Prussians. From them 
he got the idea that Austria would readily join 
France in a war against Prussia, and so reported to 
the Emperor. He took no note of the all-powerful 
middle class, which rules in constitutional countries. 
This class would not hear of becoming allies of 
France in a war against Germany. 

Late in the evening of the 18th of July, Mr. Wash- 
burne returned to Paris. He had been at Carlsbad 
for his health, but on learning the probability of 
hostilities, started at once on his return to his post. 
We had telegraphed him, but he never received the 



THE EMPEROR OPPOSED TO WAR. 141 

telegram. Few private telegrams were forwarded at 
all, and none with promptitude, in those days. 

Paris now put on its war-paint. The streets were 
gay with the jpantalon rouge ^ and all day long the 
French di'um rat-a-tapped in the streets. The Mo- 
biles began to arrive, the ISTational Guard to parade 
— everywhere was heard the "Marseillaise." The 
forbidden air was delightful to Parisian ears, because 
it was forbidden. Long before the end of the siege 
it was rarely heard. The Parisians could chant it as 
they pleased, so it soon lost its attractions. 

The war was popular in Paris. The journals 
clamored for it, and the violent republican papers, 
whatever they may now say to the contrary, were 
among the most blatant. The Emperor, personally, 
was opposed to war. He was suffering from the 
acute disease which afterward killed him, and was 
naturally depressed and despondent. He would 
gladly have avoided hostilities, but he was pushed 
into them. They persuaded him, too, that the con- 
tinuance of his dynasty, the succession of his son, de- 
manded war ; and this was the one ruling motive 
which governed both his conduct and that of the 
Empress. The Emperor was by no means the om- 
nipotent potentate he was popularly supposed to be. 



142 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

He was scarcely a free agent. It was his misfortune 
to be surrounded by a crowd of adventurers — French 
carpet-baggers. The best men of France, the gentry 
of the country, held aloof. The Emperor felt this, 
and often tried to reconcile them. Had he reigned 
ten years longer, I think that he would have suc- 
ceeded. There were signs of relenting. He was 
consequently thrown, for his high officers of state, 
upon a class of clever adventurers. Look at his last 
cabinet before the Revolution of September. One 
member was most unenviably known for the loot of 
the Summer Palace at Pekin ; another is now in Ma- 
zas, convicted of swindling ; and a third, it was cur- 
rently reported in Paris, received one hundred thou- 
sand francs in the Transcontinental, Memphis, and 
El Paso swindle ; and I have heard from high Prus- 
sian authority that when the gates of Paris were 
opened after the siege, and the Germans sold flour 
and cattle and sheep to meet the pressing necessi- 
ties of the starving Parisians, of a flock of three 
thousand sheep not one was permitted to enter the 
city till this gentleman had received two francs a 
head. 

I have said that the Emperor was scarcely a free 
agent. Here is an anecdote in point. Prince Met- 



MARSHAL LEBCEUF. 143 

ternicli, the Austrian Embassador, returning from 
Vienna, called to pay his respects at the palace. The 
Emperor asked him what military news there was 
in Austria. He replied that they were arming with 
the Eemington breech-loader. "The Eemington," 
said the Emperor, " what is that ? I thought I knew 
all the principal breech-loaders, but I never heard of 
that." Metternich explained. " Where is Eeming- 
ton ?" said the Emperor. The Prince replied that he 
happened to be in Paris. " I wish you would bring 
him to me, and do you bring him yourself ; this will 
insure my seeing him." Metternich brought him. 
The Emperor examined his piece, and was much 
pleased with it. He wrote a note with his own hand 
to the Minister of War, Le Boeuf, and told Eeming- 
ton to take it,at once : of course he was received with- 
out delay. " So, my good friend, you have seen the 
Emperor, have you V " Yes, sir, I had the honor to 
see his Majesty." " Well, you won^t see him again :" 
and he did not. This was the way the Emperor was 
served. Le Boeuf was the capable and well-inform- 
ed Minister of War who stated in the Assembly that 
France was thoroughly prepared for the field — " not 
a button on a gaiter was wanting." When the sad 
truth became known, the French wits said that his 



144 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

statement was literally correct, for there was not a 
gaiter in store. 

But while the war was popular in Paris, it was not 
so in the provinces. After the Revolution broke out, 
the Provisional Government found in the Tuileries 
a number of important historical documents, and 
among them reports from the prefects of the dif- 
ferent departments on this subject. They breathed 
one tone. The people wanted peace; but if they 
were attacked, if the honor of Prance were at stake, 
they were ready to fight. Considering the source 
whence - this information came, from imperial pre- 
fects, creatures of the Government, there was no 
mistaking the pacific feeling of the country. 



LABORS OF THE LEGATION: 145 



CHAPTER XII. 

Germans forbidden to leave Paris.— Afterward expelled. — Large 
Number in Paris. — Americans in Europe. — Emperor's Stail an In- 
cumbrance. — French Generals. — Their Rivalries. — False News from 
the Front. — Effect in Paris. — Reaction. — Expulsion of Germans. — 
Sad Scenes. — Washburne's Action. — Diplomatic Service. — Battle of 
Sedan. — Sheridan at Sedan. 

And now began our labors at the Legation, increas- 
ing from day to day, until we had thirteen distinct 
nationalities under our charge, European and South 
American. Nor was this all. The citizens of other 
countries — countries which had not formally asked 
our protection — came to us for assistance. This was 
particularly the case with Mexico and Eoumania. 
There was a large colony of Mexicans in Paris, and 
Mexico had no representative in France. The diplo- 
matic relations which were suspended by the Mexi- 
can war are still unrenewed, notwithstanding the 
friendly efforts of our Government. As regards 
Roumania, its position is peculiar. I^ominally it is 
under the suzerainty of Turkey, and the Turk claims 
to represent it abroad. But Roumania does not ac- 

7 



146 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

quiesce in this claim, and appoints its own agents, 
who are quasi -recognized by the powers to whom 
they are accredited. There was a large number of 
Roumanian students in Paris at the outbreak of the 
war. These young men were left quite destitute 
during the siege. The French Government behaved 
very generously by them. At Mr. "Washburne's sug- 
gestion, it made them a monthly allowance, sufficient 
for their support. 

The French Government had at first decided that 
no German should leave France to return home. 
The reason given for this harsh measure was that 
every German was a soldier, and would go to swell 
the enemy's ranks. It was very hard on the Ger- 
mans in France. They were thrown out of employ- 
ment, insulted, liable to violence, and sometimes as- 
saulted, and, in addition to all this, were treated as 
insoumis at home, and subject to severe punishment 
for neglect of military duty. Mr. Washburne re- 
monstrated against this measure, and wrote an able 
dispatch to the Duke de Gramont, claiming the right 
of the Germans, under all recognized international 
law, to leave France if they wished to do so. It was 
in vain. But now came a change of ministry. The 
Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne became Minister of 



GERMANS EXPELLED. 147 

Foreign Affairs, and the Government took precisely 
the opposite course, and decided to expel the Ger- 
mans. Again Mr. Washburne intervened, claiming 
that this was as much a violation of international law 
as the other course. All he could obtain was, that 
the decree should be executed with leniency, and 
that liberal exceptions should be made in individ- 
ual cases of special hardship. But the French press 
called for the expulsion of the Germans, and the 
Corps Legislatif j)assed a resolution that they should 
be expelled en masse. 

As soon as the decree was published in the Jour- 
nal Officiel, and placarded on the walls of Paris, they 
came in shoals to the Legation. From seven o'clock 
in the morning till five in the afternoon, when we 
closed the office, they fairly besieged us. Five hun- 
dred often collected in the street at once. We were 
compelled, though reluctantly, to ask for the aid of 
the police, both as a protection to the Germans 
themselves against the mob, and for our own con- 
venience. We had six gendarmes constantly on 
duty. It was almost impossible to get up our own 
stairs, and Americans who had business at the Lega- 
tion complained of the impossibility of getting in. 
I found a side-entrance through a neighbor's apart- 



148 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

ment, of which I revealed the secret to some of my 
countrymen. 

The French Government required that every Ger- 
man leaving Paris should be furnished with a pass 
from us. At Mr. Washburne's request they dis- 
pensed with the police visa, and so simplified mat- 
ters. But there were forty thousand Germans in 
Paris; of these about thirty thousand went away. 
Allowing three persons to each pass, for many had 
families, we issued about three thousand passes in six 
weeks. Many needed assistance to enable them to 
leave Paris. The Prussian Government, with great 
liberality, put fifty thousand thalers (thirty -seven 
thousand five hundred dollars) at our disposition, 
and this sum they afterward increased. We gave 
those who needed them railroad tickets to the fron- 
tier of Germany and Belgium; there the German 
Government took charge of them, or rather a chari- 
table organization under the presidency of the Em- 
press Augusta, who showed the most unwearying de- 
votion in good works during the whole war. Eight 
or ten thousand remained in Paris during the siege. 
Of those at least one-third came upon the Legation 
for support, unwillingly in most cases, and driven by 
necessity. 



THE EMPEROR'S STAFF. 149 

But while the Germans thus thronged onr office, 
our own countrymen were not wanting. In six 
weeks we issued eleven hundred passports. Allow- 
ing an average of three persons to a passport, thirty- 
three hundred Americans passed through Paris in 
those six weeks. To these may be added another 
thousand who had passports from the State Depart- 
ment. The question has often been asked me, How 
many Americans do you suppose are in Europe ? If 
to the above forty-three hundred we add seventeen 
hundred for those who remained quietly where the 
war found them, or procured their passports at other 
legations, we have six thousand souls. At that time 
this was the average number of our people tempora- 
rily in Europe. There are fewer now. 

On the 28th of July the Emperor started for the 
seat of war. He took with him his Centgardes and 
a numerous staff. [N^othing can be worse for an 
army than to be encumbered with a large head-quar- 
ters staff. It involves an immense amount of trans- 
portation, blocking up the roads, and interfering 
with the march of the troops. Every thing must 
give w^ay to head - quarters trains, even supplies for 
the soldiers and ammunition for the guns. This 
naturally breeds discontent, and interferes with the 



150 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

efficiency of tlie army. A staff should consist of the 
fewest possible number of working men, and they 
should be restricted, like the line, to a limited amount 
of baggage. Sherman gave an example of what a 
staff should be in this respect, on his famous march 
to the sea. 

Meantime rumors of disaster came thick and fast 
from the front. The French had fought the battle 
of Wissembourg with great gallantry, but they were 
outnumbered and outgeneraled. Indeed, it was their 
misfortune in this war to have no great generals. I 
was reminded of our own experience when our war 
broke out, and when we appointed to high command 
men who had " the Spirit of the Lord, and a dispo- 
sition to storm works," which Mr. Stanton then de- 
clared to be all that was necessary. He lived to 
change his mind, and to become one of the strongest 
advocates of trained military talent. Happily for us, 
the war lasted long enough to enable us to sift the 
wheat from the chaff. Its close found in high com- 
mand the very men best fitted to be there. The 
good sense of our rulers and the tenacity of our peo- 
ple had enabled us to effect this vital change. The 
French were not so fortunate. Their generals in 
high command when the war broke out were not 



BITTER RIVALRIES. 151 

equal to the situation, and their armies were defeated 
and overwhehned before the officers of ability, who 
were undoubtedly to be found among them, but in 
inferior positions, had had the opportunity to show 
what was in them. For the system of advancement 
under the Empire was not calculated to bring the 
best men to the front. I was told during the siege 
by General Berthaut, now Minister of War, that an 
officer who studied was looked upon as a republican, 
and passed over. The road to promotion lay through 
the cafe. 

There were bitter rivalries, too, between the corps 
commanders. It was stated, I do not know with 
what truth, that repeated messages failed to bring 
up the supporting corps to MacMahon's assistance. 
The same thing had happened at Solferino, where, 
as it was alleged, the battle was nearly lost, because 
Canrobert would not support Mel. A challenge 
passed between them, and nothing but the imper- 
ative intervention of the Emperor prevented the 
scandal of a duel. 

The defeat at Wissembourg was not published in 
Paris till several hours after it had appeared in the 
London morning papers. The press was muzzled. 
The depression produced was very great. Certain 



152 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

Bourse operators took advantage of the inflamma- 
ble state of public opinion. One day a man in the 
uniform of a Government courier rode up to the 
Bourse, and, calling out his confederate, delivered a 
dispatch purporting to come from the front : " Great 
victory ; total defeat of the Prussians ; capture of the 
Crown Prince ; French army in full march for Ber- 
lin!" Up went stocks. The crowd shouted, sung, 
wept for joy, threw themselves into each other's 
arms, embraced, and kissed. Popular actors and 
singers were recognized as they drove through the 
streets, stopped, and compelled to sing or recite the 
" Marseillaise." Paris was drunk with joy. Then 
came the reaction. The truth was soon known. As 
they had been extreme in their joy, they were now 
extreme in their grief. They were not only despond- 
ent, they were in despair. As the poor Empress said 
at the time to Mr. Washburne, " They have no for-ti- 
tude." The crowd collected in the streets, inveighed 
against the Government, and, in a pouring rain, 
marched to Ollivier's residence, in the Place Yen- 
dome, and insisted upon his addressing them. Olli- 
vier was then the head of the Government. He had 
not much to say, but he was an eloquent speaker, 
and partially pacified them. 



EXPULSION OF GERMANS. 153 

But the defeats of the French and their conse- 
quent exasperation reacted upon the Germans under 
our protection. Employers discharged their work- 
men ; those who would gladly have kept them dared 
not. They lived in constant dread, and the num- 
ber of those thronging to the Legation to obtain the 
means of departure increased daily. The suffering, 
both moral and physical, was very great. It must 
be borne in mind that many of these people had 
been settled for years in Paris ; that they had mar- 
ried there; their children had been born and had 
married there ; their property and their business in- 
terests all lay there. Yet they were pitilessly ex- 
pelled, and not only their business interests ruined, 
but the dearest family ties dissevered. We have 
heard much in history and romance of the expul- 
sion of the Moors from Spain, and of the Huguenots 
from France, and our sympathies are deeply stirred 
as we read of the misery endured by those poor ex- 
iles. I do not see why the expulsion of the Ger- 
mans does not rank with these touching episodes, 
both in the suffering of the victims and the pathos 
of their departure. 

Of course the French Government did not expel 
these poor people with the coqut leger. They had 

7* 



154 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



their reasons. Tliey said that in case of siege there 
would be additional mouths to feed, and that it 
would be a constant source of danger to have so 
many Germans residing in their midst. But at that 
time a siege was not anticipated ; and, except in 
this case, there surely could have been no danger in 
their stay. 

There were touching scenes at the Legation among 
the weeping crowd of women. Some left children 
and grandchildren married to Frenchmen. Some 
were not in a fit condition to travel, but required the 
comforts of a home, and tender care. A child was 
born upon a bench in the street in front of the Le- 
gation. (It was suggested to name it after a distin- 
guished American diplomate.) Every thing that en- 
ergy and kindness of heart could do to facilitate the 
departure of those poor people, and to mitigate its 
severity, was done by our minister. 

And here let me remark that no one could have 
been better fitted for the difiicult task he was sud- 
denly called upon to undertake than Mr. Washburne. 
He trusted to the dictates of a sound judgment, a 
kind heart, and a fearless temperament; and these 
are pretty safe guides in the long run. Had he 
been brought up in diplomacy, he would have hesi- 



DIPLOMATIC SERVICE. 1 55 

tated and read up for precedents which did not ex- 
ist, and so let the propitious moment pass. The re- 
sult of my observation in Europe during ten years 
of pretty active service is this: that while there 
should be a permanent officer in every embassy^ — a 
chancellier^ as he is called in Paris — who can turn 
promptly to any page of the archives, and is posted 
in the history of the relations of the country in 
which he resides with his own ; who knows the 
court ceremonial, and is intimate with the court offi- 
cials ; in short, " who knows the ropes " — it is quite 
as well that the head of the embassy should be a new 
man. He will attach much less importance to trifles, 
and act more fearlessly in emergencies. Great Brit- 
ain and France have pursued this plan in several 
instances lately. The old diplomates grumble, but 
it is clearly for the advantage of the country. 

News of reverses now poured in upon us, until 
they culminated in the great disaster of Sedan. 
That this should have been so great a calamity — 
a capitulation instead of a defeat — appears to have 
been the fault of MacMahon. He was compelled by 
imperative orders from Paris, and entirely against 
his own judgment, to go to the relief of Bazaine, 
and to fight against overwhelming odds. But for 



IS6 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

the tactical disposition of his forces, by which they 
-were penned up in a cul-de-sac from which they had 
no line of retreat, he, as commander-in-chief, is ap- 
parently responsible. But the French armies seem 
from the beginning to have been badly organized, 
badly led, and conscious that they were so, and dis- 
couraged accordingly. I have General Sheridan's au- 
thority for saying that the position of the French at 
Sedan was a very strong one ; and while it was inev- 
itable that they should be defeated by superior num- 
bers, they ought to have held their ground for three 
days. I have no doubt that our troops under Sheri- 
dan would have done so. He spoke in the highest 
terms of the gallantry of the French cavalry, which 
was sacrificed to encourage the infantry. The re- 
mark of a distinguished French general upon the 
Charge of the Six Hundred, " C^est magnifique^ mais 
ce n'' est pas la guerre^'^ would have applied equally 
well to the charge of the cuirassiers at Sedan. 

Sheridan accompanied the King's head - quarters. 
We had asked ofiicially, at the commencement of the 
war, that he might be permitted to accompany the 
French army, and been refused. The Emperor sub- 
sequently told Dr. Evans that he had never heard 
of the application. General orders had been issued 



GENERAL SHERIDAN. 157 

that no foreign officer should go with the army ; but 
there was surely some difference between the appli- 
cation of an officer for this permission on his own 
account, and the request of a friendly Government 
that the Lieutenant-General of its armies might be 
permitted to accompany the Emperor. The appli- 
cation probably never got beyond the chef du cabi- 
net of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nowhere in 
the world is bureaucracy carried to the extent it is 
in France. A minister can scarcely appoint a clerk 
in his office. The chef dtc hici^emi is omnipotent in 
his own department. The Eepublic promised to 
change all this; but its ministers, after a gallant 
effort, have fallen in the struggle, and things move 
on in the same old groove. 

At the battle of Sedan, Sheridan stood near Count 
Bismarck. Toward its close he shut up his glass, 
and, turning to Bismarck, said, " The battle is won." 
The Count replied that he should be glad to think 
so, but saw no signs of it yet. In a minute or two 
more the French gave way. Turning his glass to- 
ward Sedan, Sheridan observed, "The Emperor is 
there." Bismarck answered that it could not be; 
that the Emperor was not such a fool as to place 
himself in that situation. Looking again, Sheridan 



158 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

said, " He is there, anyhow." He had drawn his 
conclusions from tlie immense staff he saw, and the 
confusion reigning among them. 

Sheridan was right. The Emperor and his staff 
were prisoners of war. The Emperor had behaved 
with the greatest personal courage, and subsequently, 
when dissensions arose between the French generals 
as to who was responsible for the great disaster, he 
behaved with the greatest generosity. But he should 
not have been at Sedan. The post of usefulness and 
of danger for him was at Paris, and not with the 
army. 



SEPTEMBER 4. 159 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

Revolution of September 4th, ISVO.— Paris eii Fete.— YXx^i of the 
Empress. — Saved by Foreigners. — Escapes in an English Yacht. — 
Government of National Defense. — Trochu at its Head. — Jules 
Simon. — United States recognizes Republic. — Washburne's Ad- 
dress. — Favre's Answer. — Efforts for Peace. — John L. O'Sullivan. 

On Sunday, the 4tli of September, 1870, Paris was 
en fete. The Parisians had a new revolution, and 
were delighted with it. The whole population had 
turned out, men, women, and children, in their holi- 
day clothes. They filled the beautiful Place de la 
Concorde, the finest in the world ; they swarmed 
across the bridge and into the Palais Bourbon, where 
the Corps Legislatif was in session. The soldiers 
who guarded the imperial legislators melted away, 
the cocked hats of the truculent gendarmes vanished 
miraculously. The Conscript Fathers did not exact- 
ly imitate the Roman Senators when they too were 
invaded by the Gauls, but disappeared as quickly 
as the gendarmes. These were the gentlemen who 
had howled for war, and called Mr. Thiers traitor 
when he pleaded for peace. The people were gay. 



l6o CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

good-liumored, liappy ; in short, it was a Sunday fete, 
and in half an hour Paris, and consequently France, 
was a republic. 

From the Palais Bourbon the crowd went to the 
Tuileries, where the Empress was awaiting the prog- 
ress of events. There was no anger then felt to- 

v ward her, and she was not in danger ; but a mob, 
and especially a French mob, is a capricious creature. 
It may be in the gayest of humors ; a trifle turns its 

/mood, and it becomes blood-thirsty as a tiger. The 
Empress sent for Trochu, the Governor of Paris. 
He had sworn on his faith as a soldier, a Catholic, 
and a Breton, to stand by her to the end. He kept 
his word by sending an aid-de-camp to her assist- 
ance. Of all the creatures of the court whom the 
favor of the Emperor had raised from obscurity, not 
one came near her. Jerome Bonaparte — the Ameri- 
can Bonaparte — had been Governor of the Palace. 
Fortunately he had been appointed to the command 
of a regiment of cavalry ; for had he still been Gov- 
ernor there would probably have been a fight, and 
it was as well that there should be no bloodshed. 
Happily for the Empress, two foreigners remember- 
ed her. The Embassador of Austria and the Minis- 
ter of Italy went to her aid. They found every sign 



FLIGHT OF THE EMPRESS. i6i 

of demoralization at the palace, tlie servants desert- 
ing, and pilfering as they went. They persuaded 
her, much against her will, to fly. They traversed the 
whole length of the Louvre to the door in the rear. 
Metternich opened the door, but, seeing the crowd, 
closed it again. "6fe vDest que Vaiidace qui sauve^'^ 
said the Empress, and ordered it opened. They 
passed into the crowd. A gamin recognized her, 
and cried, '' L^ Irrvperatrice ! V Imjperatrice P'' "I'll 
teach you to cry ' Vive la Prusse P " said Nigra, and 
pinched his ear till he howled. Metternich went for 
his carriage. While he was gone, a fiacre passed, 
Nigra hailed it, and the Empress and Madame Le 
Breton entered. It was agreed that they should 
meet at the house of a noted Bonapartist. She 
went there, and was refused admission. She went 
to another; he was out of town. In this emergen- 
cy she thought of Dr. Evans, her American dentist, 
and drove to his residence. He was expecting two 
American ladies on a visit to his family, and every 
thing was prepared for them. When the servant 
announced two ladies, the doctor was at dinner. 
Excusing himself to his guests, he went out to re- 
ceive them, and found the Empress. The next day 
he took her and Madame Le Breton in his carriage 



1 62 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

to Troaville, on the coast, near Ha^re. There was a 
sort of guard kept at the gates of Paris, though not 
a very strict one. The doctor said, " You know me, 
Dr. Evans. I am taking this poor lady to the asylum 
here at ISTeuilly." They passed, and arrived safely at 
Trouville, where the doctor's family were spending 
the summer. 

In the mean time a little English yacht of fifty 
tons was lying in dock at Trouville. Her owner. Sir 
John Burgoyne, great-nephew of General Burgoyne, 
who commanded the British troops at Saratoga, had 
intended to sail that day for England; but at the 
suggestion of an American lady, a friend of his 
wife's, had decided to remain another day, and make 
an excursion to the ruins of the castle of William 
the Conqueror. In the evening Dr. Evans went on 
board, and stated who he was, and what he had come 
for. As soon as he was satisfied that the Empress 
was really at Trouville, Sir John said that he 
would gladly take her across the Channel, and it was 
agreed that she should come on board in the morn- 
ing, when the tide served. That evening the gen- 
darmes visited the yacht, for it was rumored that the 
Empress was at Trouville. In the morning she came 
on board, and the yacht sailed. The voyage was very 



GENERAL TROCffU. 163 

rough, and the little vessel was obliged to lie to. 
She arrived safely at Ryde, however, and the Em- 
press proceeded at once to Hastings, where she met 
her son. Thus she had escaped by the aid exclu- 
sively of foreigners — an Austrian and an Italian, an 
American and an Englishman. 

The new Government, the "l^ational Defense" 
they called it — the French attach great impor- 
tance to names — was duly inaugurated at the Ho- 
tel de Yille. Had it not been inaugurated there, and 
proclaimed from the historic window, the Parisians 
would scarcely have looked upon it as a legitimate 
Government. General Trochu was placed at its 
head, and Jules Favre made Minister of Foreign 
Affairs. The appointment of Trochu was unfortu- 
nate. He was an honorable man, intelligent, a stu- 
dent, and a good military critic, but utterly valueless 
in active service. He coddled the mob, treating 
them as if they were the purest of patriots ; whereas 
they were the marplots of the Defense. He was se- 
lected probably because he was the only Republican 
among the French generals of prominence, and not 
for any peculiar fitness for command in those troub- 
lous times. 

Shortly after the inauguration of the Government 



1 64 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

of the National Defense, Mr. Washburne had occa- 
sion to go to the Hotel de Yille. Jules Simon, now 
Minister of the Interior, seized the opportunity to 
make us an oration. What particular object he had 
in view, unless it were to convince the Minister of 
the United States that Jules Simon was a great ora- 
tor, I have been unable to discover. If that was his 
object, he succeeded. Whether it was worth while 
to occupy his and our valuable time for this pur- 
pose only, may be doubted. 

On the 7th of September came our instructions to 
recognize the Kepublic if it seemed to us to be firm- 
ly established. Mr. Washburue sent me to make 
an appointment with Jules Favre. It was made for 
that afternoon. While Washburne prepared his ad- 
dress, I read up in the archives of the Legation to 
learn what was done under similar circumstances in 
1848. I found that we had been the first to recog- 
nize the Eepublic at that date, but that Lamartine, 
in his report, had taken no notice of the fact, for 
fear, it was said, of wounding the susceptibilities of 
Great Britain. Washburne told me to mention this 
circumstance to Favre: he did not intend that we 
should be ignored a second time, if he could pre- 
vent it. I mentioned it to Favre, and he replied, 



THE REPUBLIC RECOGNIZED. 165 

substantially, that Great Britain had not treated 
France so well that they need have any particular 
anxiety about wounding her susceptibilities; and 
added that Great Britain was now of very little 
consequence. 

Mr. Washburne's address was an admirable docu-*7 
ment. Favre replied to it very happily. He said . 
that the recognition of the "young Republic" by 
the United States was a " grand aj>pui ;'''' that he 
"felt gratitude and profound emotion." Jules Fa- 
vre is a master of the French language. It is a 
great treat to hear him, even in ordinary conversa- 
tion, roll out in a charming voice and impressive 
manner the most perfectly harmonious words of 
that beautiful language. French does not rise to 
the sublimity of poetry. Shakspeare is absurd in 
French. But for charm in conversation, and pre- 
cision in science, it is simply perfect. 

The next day the interview was reported in full 
in the Officiel. Washburne's address was very well 
translated, except where he quoted from the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and spoke of the right of ev- 
ery man to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness." Here the translator had made him say that 
every man had a right ^'de vivre en travaillant mi 



1 66 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

honheur de tons.'''' Rather a liberal translation, and 
thorouglily Frencli both in language and sentiment. 
But I have not remarked that the French Republic- 
ans labor more for the happiness of their neigh- 
bors than other nationalities, or than their own coun- 
trymen. If there be a political party in France 
which does more in charities than another, it is the 
Orleanist. 

Favre was very anxious that Mr. Washburne 
should intervene to make peace. When he found 
that under our instructions we could not join with 
other European powers in political matters purely 
European (advice left us by Washington, and wisely 
followed by Mr. Fish), he begged Mr. Washburne to 
intervene in his private capacity. But he replied 
very sensibly that it was impossible for him to sepa- 
rate his private from his public capacity; he must 
always be the Minister of the United States. 

But what Washburne felt compelled to decline, 
another American gentleman, Mr. O'Sullivan, for- 
merly our Minister at Lisbon, undertook. He asked 
Mr. Washburne for a letter to Bismarck, but this he 
did not feel authorized to give. He then begged for 
a letter of introduction to Sheridan, who was at the 
King's head-quarters. This he received. Jules Fa- 



EFFORTS FOR PEACE. 1 67 

vre, who clutched eagerly at any thing that might 
possibly lead to peace, gave him a safe-conduct, and 
he started for the Prussian lines. But he never got 
to head-quarters. That long-headed Bismarck had 
anticipated some such outside benevolent efforts, and 
had given orders to the outlying corps that if any 
distinguished gentlemen came along desiring to make 
peace, they should be treated with all possible court- 
esy, but not allowed to approach head-quarters with- 
out permission of the King. O' Sullivan was stop- 
ped, and his letter forwarded to Sheridan. Bis- 
marck sent for the General, and asked if he knew 
O'Sullivan. He said he did not. He then asked if 
he was anxious to see him. Slieridan replied that 
he should be happy to make his acquaintance, but 
that he saw no pressing haste in the matter. " Then 
he sha'n't come," said Bismarck ; and O'Sullivan re- 
turned to Paris. But the French did not treat him 
so well as the Germans. As he approached Paris, 
walking quietly along the high-road, a carpet-bag in 
one hand and an umbrella in the other, a detachment 
of the vigilant National Guard rushed across a field 
and covered him with their loaded pieces. As he 
made no resistance, they simply took from him his 
bag and umbrella, and led him before their com- 



1 68 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

mander blindfolded. That officer sent him under 
guard to one of those wretched dens scooped out of 
the barrier where they sometimes confined smug- 
glers temporarily, but which were oftener used for 
more unsavory purposes. There they kept him all 
night. In the morning Jules Favre sent to his as- 
sistance, and he was released. 

O'Sullivan afterward left Paris in the general ex- 
odus of Americans. He went, as they did, to Yer- 
sailles ; but he staid there some three weeks, talk- 
ing peace to the German princes quartered at the Ho- 
tel des Reservoirs, some of wlioni he had previously 
known. He had a plan, not at all a bad one in it- 
self, but under the circumstances entirely impracti- 
cable. It was to neutralize a strip of territory lying 
between France and Germany, annex part of it to 
Belgium, and part to Switzerland, and put it under 
the protection of the Great Powers. One evening 
O'Sullivan dined with the Crown Prince. He sat 
next to Bismarck, and discoursed upon his pet neu- 
tral-strip theory. As they parted, Bismarck, shook 
his hand, and said that he was charmed to make his 
acquaintance. " But, Mr. O'Sullivan, a curious thing 
sometimes happens to me : I make the acquaintance 
of a most agreeable gentleman in the afternoon, and 



JOHN L. O' SULLIVAN. 1 69 

in the evening I find myself reluctantly compelled 
to order him out of Yersailles." O'Sullivan men- 
tioned this to friends he was visiting in the evening, 
but did not see its application to himself. They did, 
however. He went to his hotel, and found a Prus- 
sian officer at his door with orders for him to leave 
Versailles that night. He remonstrated, and it was 
finally agreed that he should start at eight o'clock in 
the morning. A sentry was placed at the bedroom 
door, who thought that a proper discharge of his 
duty required him to open it every five minutes 
during the night, to make sure that his prisoner 
had not escaped. Mrs. O'Sullivan did not quite ap- 
preciate the situation. 

8 



lyo CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



CHAPTER XIY. 

Belleville Demonstrates. — Radical Clubs. — Their Blasphemy and Vio- 
lence. — Unreasonable Suspicion. — Outrages. — Diplomatic Corps. — 
Some of them leave Paris. — Meeting of the Corps. — Votes not to 
Leave. — Embassadors and Ministers. — Right of Correspondence in 
a Besieged Place. — Commencement of Siege, September 19th.— Be- 
siegers and Besieged. — Advantages of Besieged. 

Belleville now began a series of patriotic demon- 
strations at the Legation, which soon became a nui- 
sance. When I first heard the drum and fife com- 
ing up the Rue Chaillot, and several respectable- 
looking citizens came in and inquired for Mr. Wash- 
burne, I was quite impressed with the interest of the 
occasion. Washburne went out upon the balcony 
and made them a speech, and thanked them for this 
demonstration patriotique. But when they began 
to come daily, and the rag, tag, and bobtail at that, 
and day after day "Washburne was called out to 
thank them for this demonstration patriotique^ I 
got very heartily sick of it. "We were too busy to 
have our time wasted in this way. But as the siege 
progressed, and we did our duty in protecting the 



CLUBS. 171 



Germans, as we received news from the outside 
when others did not, and that news was uniformly 
unfavorable to the French, the demonstrations jpa- 
triotiques ceased ; and it was only a fear of the law, 
and that " divinity that doth hedge in a " diplomate, 
that prevented our receiving a demonstration of a 
very different sort. 

For the clubs were now rampant, another bane of 
the Defense. Had they been suppressed at the be- 
ginning, as they were at the end, of the siege by 
General Yinoy, the result might have been differ- 
ent. Their orators advocated the wildest and most 
destructive theories amidst the applause of a conge- 
nial audience. Blasphemy was received with special 
favor. I remember once, however, the orator sea- 
soned his discourse too high even for that audience. 
He said he " would like to scale heaven, and collar 
[empoigner] the Deity." It was the day of balloons, 
and a wag in the audience called out, " Why don't 
you go up in a balloon?" This turned the laugh 
upon the orator, and he disappeared, for in Paris 
ridicule kills. 

A curious and annoying feature in the Parisian 
character during the war was the unreasoning and 
unreasonable suspicion of the population. A gen- 



172 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

tleman from Philadelpliia interested in Fairmonnt 
Park, which was then just opened, was struck with 
the beauty of the gates at the entrance to the Bois 
on the Avenue de I'lmperatrice — Avenue du Bois 
de Boulogne they call it now, certainly not a change 
for the better, for it was a beautiful avenue, appropri- 
ately named after a beautiful woman. Our Phila- 
delphia friend called his daughter's attention to the 
gates, remarking that they would be appropriate at 
Fairmount, and took out his note -book to sketch 
them. He was at once surrounded by a mob, he and 
his daughter arrested, and hurried before the Mcdre 
of the arrondissement. They said he was a Prussian 
spy, and was sketching the fortifications. He ex- 
plained who he was, and what he was doing, and of- 
fered the drawing in proof. There were the gates 
to speak for themselves, but this was no evidence to 
them. Mr. Justice Shallow insisted that he must 
be a spy. Happily for him, the mayor's clerk was a 
sensible man, and spoke a little English, and through 
his instrumentality our friend was discharged. 

I have seen a mob collect about a gentleman who 
took from his pocket a piece of paper and a pencil 
to write down an address. I knew an American 
friend to be arrested, mistaken for Mr. Schneider, 



SUSPICION, 173 



formerly President of the Corps Legislatif. My 
man was dark, and Schneider was fair; but that 
made no difference. During the petroleum mad- 
ness, immediately after the suppression of the Com- 
mune, an American lady was followed to her home 
and very nearly maltreated because she had a bottle 
of fleuT W orange in her hand, which she had just 
bought at the druggist's. Our vice-consul had red 
curtains in his sitting-room. One evening he was 
disagreeably surprised by a visit of armed National 
Guards. They accused him of making signals to the 
enemy. On seeing the red curtains, they became 
satisfied. That a five -story house on the opposite 
side of a narrow street must effectually preclude his 
lights from being seen at a distance, was no answer 
to them. Mr. Washburne called the attention of the 
French Government to this outrage ; but, as no 
harm had been done, we could not follow the matter 
up. Under our consular convention with France, a 
consul's house is inviolable; but a vice-consul has 
no official existence when the consul is present. 
When he is absent, his deputy succeeds to his priv- 
ileges and immunities as consular representative of 
the country. 
Mr. Washburne was not the man to submit to any 



174 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

outrage upon German or American property. A 
squad of National Guards entered and partially pil- 
laged the house of the German school-master Hedler, 
where Washburne's son and other American boys 
were at school. Our Minister was in arms at once. 
The Government apologized, the battalion was pa- 
raded under arms, the Chief of Police made them a 
speech, the guilty men were called out and punished, 
and full damages were paid to Hedler, assessed to 
Mr. Washburne's satisfaction. 

To resume my narrative. On the 18th of Septem- 
ber, several of the principal members of the diplo- 
matic corps left Paris. Their departure gave rise to 
a good deal of discussion, and much has been written 
and said upon the subject. The diplomatic corps, 
as a body, never left Paris. A few days before the 
siege, Lord Lyons called upon Jules Favre. Fava-e 
suggested that if the diplomatic coi'ps wished to 
leave Paris — and it was natural that they should— he 
was prepared to accompany them. Lord Lyons re- 
plied that he saw no necessity for departure at that 
time. Favre thereupon said that, in this case, he 
should stay too. 

On the morning of the 18th, Prince Metternich, 
the Austrian Embassador, came very early to the 



DIPLOMATIC CORPS. 175 

British Embassy, and said that he meant to go away 
that afternoon in company with the Turkish Embas- 
sador and the Italian Minister, and hoped that Lord 
Lyons would accompany them. Lord Lyons replied 
that he saw no necessity for haste, for Bismarck 
would let them go at any time. Metternich answer- 
ed, " I don't want to ask any favors of Bismarck, and 
my Government doesn't want me to." Lord Lyons 
then finding that the Great Powers of Europe had 
left, or were about to leave, Paris, consented to go 
too, and called again upon Favre. But Favre told 
him that he had then made his arrangements to stay ; 
but that he should send Count Chaudordy to repre- 
sent his department at Tours. 

As soon as it was known that the representatives 
of several of the Great Powers had left Paris, a 
meeting of the corps was called by the Nuncio, at 
the request of several of its members. The question 
was put. Shall the diplomatic corps leave Paris ? and 
decided in the negative. 

But the members departed one by one, till but a 
few were left. Another meeting was then called, 
and again it was decided not to leave Paris. 

It is quite generally supposed that Mr. Washburne 
was the only Minister who remained during the 



176 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

whole siege. This is incorrect. There were six in 
all — the representatives of Northern powers — ]N'or- 
way and Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Switz- 
erland, and the United States. In their relations to 
the French Government, and in their correspondence 
with Count Bismarck upon their right to communi- 
cate with their respective governments during the 
siege, and to due notice in case of proposed bom- 
bardment, these gentlemen acted in unison as the 
diplomatic corps at Paris. 

The division of diplomatic representatives into 
embassadors and ministers appears to me to be a 
mistake. It is certainly pleasant for the embassa- 
dors. They have the right of direct communication 
with the sovereign, for they are held to represent 
the person of their own sovereign, which the minis- 
ters do not. At Paris, at the court festivities, they 
occupied arm-chairs by the side of the Emperor 
and Empress, while the ministers were seated on 
benches in a loge. They had precedence on the re- 
ception-days of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. A 
minister might have waited two hours ; an embassa- 
dor dropped in, and entered before him. Some of 
them, like Lord Lyons, did not abuse this privilege. 
He transacted his business as quickly as possible, and 



RIGHT OF CORRESPONDENCE. 177 

gave place to another. The Turkish Embassador, on 
the other hand, used to gossip by the hour. That he 
kept a dozen of his colleagues waiting seemed rather 
to please him. I once heard Lord Lyons remon- 
strate with him for doing so, and he giggled as if 
he thought it rather a good joke. In Prussia this is 
not permitted : first come, first served, is the rule at 
Berlin, and it seems to me to be the just one. Mr. 
Bancroft got this rule established, and deserves great 
credit for the stout fight he made on the occasion. 
Count Bismarck is stated to have said that if there 
had been no embassadors, there would have been no 
war ; for the French Government could not have in- 
vented the story that their Embassador had been in- 
sulted by the King. However this may be, there 
can be no doubt that the system leads to the fonna- 
tion of cliques, and, consequently, to separate action 
by a clique instead of by the whole corps. This is 
bad under any circumstances, but particularly un- 
fortunate in great emergencies. 

In regard to the right of free communication with 
their respective governments claimed by the diplo- 
matic corps at Paris, Count Bismarck refused to ac- 
cord it. He argued that if these gentlemen saw fit 
to shut themselves up in a besieged place when they 

8* 



1 78 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

could go away for the asking, and when the French 
Government had made provision for this case by es- 
tablishing a branch of the Government at Tours, 
they must take the consequences ; but as a favor he 
would permit correspondence if it were left un- 
sealed. Of course the corps declined these terms. 
To Mr. Washburne he wrote (and Bismarck writes 
and speaks admirable English) that his position 
as protector of the North Germans in France en- 
titled him to a different answer ; that as an evi- 
dence of his gratitude for the fidelity and energy 
with which the duties of this position had been dis- 
charged, it had given him great pleasure to obtain 
from the King permission for Mr. Washburne to re- 
ceive a sealed bag containing his dispatches and his 
private correspondence as often as military necessi- 
ties would permit. 

There has been much difference of opinion ex- 
pressed as to the right of a diplomatic body volun- 
tarily remaining in a besieged place to receive and 
answer dispatches in sealed correspondence. Mr. 
Washburne contended that they had such a right ; 
and in this he was energetically supported by Mr. 
Fish. I confess, however, that to my mind the 
right is by no means clear. To me Bismarck's ar- 



RIGHT OF CORRESPONDENCE. 179 

gument is unanswerable. " You see fit to stay when 
the Great Powers of Europe have gone, and when 
the French Government has made arrangements for 
the due discharge of your duties elsewhere. By so 
doing you put yourselves in the position of other 
inhabitants of the besieged place, and can claim no 
privileges not accorded to them." In the case of Mr. 
Washburne, charged with the protection of the Ger- 
mans at the request of the German Government it- 
self, the necessity for remaining at Paris may have 
existed. At all events, if he thought that it did, it 
did not lie in the mouth of that Government to say 
that it did not. By choosing as their agent the rep- 
resentative of a friendly and independent power, 
they left his judgment unfettered as to the manner 
of discharging his duties. The same remark applies 
to M. Kern, the Minister of Switzerland, who was 
charged with the protection of the Bavarians and 
the Badois. But as regards the other gentlemen, I 
can not but agree with Count Bismarck. I was con- 
firmed in this view, after the siege was over, by Gen- 
eral Sheridan. Dining at my table one day in com- 
pany with Mr. "Washburne, he said to him, " If I had 
been in Moltke's place, you would not have had your 
bag." 



i8o CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

The siege commenced on the 19th of September. 
For some days previous the streets of Paris had pre- 
sented an unwonted and curious appearance. They 
were thronged with the quaintest-looking old carts, 
farm- wagons, IS^oah's arks of every kind, loaded with 
the furniture of the poor inhabitants of the neigh- 
borhood flying to Paris for safety. On tlie other 
hand, the stations were thronged with the carriages 
of the better classes leaving the city. The railroads 
were so overworked that they finally refused to take 
any baggage that could not be carried by the passen- 
ger himself. Imagine the painful situation of some 
of our fair countrywomen, Worth's admirers and pa- 
trons ! To have come to Paris amidst all the dan- 
gers of war to procure something to wear, to have 
procured it, and then to be unable to carry it away ! 
But what will not woman's wit and energy do under 
such circumstances? A clever and energetic friend 
of mine hired a hateau - mouche, one of the little 
steamers that ply on the Seine from one part of 
Paris to another, and, embarking wdth her " impedi- 
menta," sailed triumphantly for Havre. 

It had been agreed between Mr. Washburn e and 
myself that if the diplomatic corps left Paris, and 
he accompanied them, I should remain to take 



BESIEGERS AND BESIEGED. i8i 

charge of the Legation, and look after American and 
German property ; and he so reported to Mr. Fish. 
I had quite a curiosity to be a besieged. I had been 
a besieger at Port Hudson, and thought that I would 
like to experience the other sensation. The sensa- 
tion is not an unpleasant one, especially in a city 
like Paris. If you have been overworked and har- 
assed, the relief is very great. There is a calm, a 
sort of Sunday rest, about it that is quite delightful. 
In my experience the life of the besieged is alto- 
gether the most comfortable of the two. You live 
quietly in your own house, and with your own serv- 
ants ; and with a little forethought you may be am- 
ply provisioned. You sleep in your own room, in- 
stead of in a cold, damp, and muddy tent ; and if 
an eclat Wdbus — as the French delicately call it — 
strikes your house on one side, you move into the 
other. There has been a great deal of fine writing 
about famous sieges, and the suffering and heroism 
of the inhabitants. I imagine that there was not so 
much suffering, after all, at Saragossa ; and that the 
" Maid " and her companions in arms had plenty of 
corn-meal and good mule-meat to eat — not a dis- 
agreeable or unwholesome diet for a while ! 



l82 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



CHAPTEE XY. 

Balloons. — Large Number dispatched. — Small Number lost. — Worth. 
— Carrier - pigeons. — Their Failure. — Their Instincts. — Times 
"Agony Column." — Correspondence. — Letters to Besieged. — Count 
Solms. — Our Dispatch-bag. — Moltke complains that it is abused. — 
Washburne's Answer. — Bismarck's Reply. 

At the beginning of the siege, one of the absorb- 
ing topics of discussion among the Parisians was the 
means of communication with the outer world. The 
French had always had a fancy for ballooning, and 
were probably in advance of the rest of the world in 
this respect. They now applied their experience to 
a practical use, and soon a service of mail balloons 
w^as organized, starting from Paris twice a week. 
At first they were dispatched in the afternoon, for 
the all-sufficient reason that they always had been 
dispatched in the afternoon ; but soon they found 
that the balloon did not rise quickly enough to es- 
cape the bullets of the Prussians encamped upon the 
hills which surround Paris. So they changed the 
hour of departure to one in the morning. When 
daylight appeared they were beyond the Prussian 



BALLOONS. 183 



Hues. Indeed, the speed of the balloon is sometimes 
marvelous. Starting at one o'clock in the morning, 
one of them fell into the sea off the coast of Holland 
at daylight. The passengers were rescued by a fish- 
ing-smack. A second descended in Norway on the 
very morning it left Paris. The ofiicer of the Post- 
office who was charged with the organization of 
this service told me that, of ninety-seven balloons 
that left Paris during the siege, ninety-four arrived 
safely; about equal to railway -trains in these latter 
days. Two fell into the hands of the enemy, and 
one was never heard of. It was supposed to have 
drifted out to sea and been lost. A balloon was 
seen off Eddystone Light-house. A few days after- 
ward a gentleman spending the winter at Torquay 
received a letter from the rector at Land's End, 
Cornwall, stating that a number of letters had drift- 
ed ashore, supposed to have been lost from a balloon, 
and among them was one addressed to him; that it 
had been dried, and on receipt of twopence it would 
be sent him. It proved to be a balloon letter from 
me, and is still preserved as a souvenir of the siege 
and the sea. 

Quite at the beginning of the siege a member of 
my own family received a letter from me, dispatch- 



i84 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

ed bj the first balloon which left Paris. Its arrival 
created quite a sensation in the little Welsh water- 
ing-place where she was spending a part of the au- 
tumn. People stopped her in the street, and asked 
to see the "balloon letter." The natives evidently 
thought that it must have something of the balloon 
about it. 

I recollect "Worth's coming to the Legation one 
day — (and who does not know Worth? He rules 
the women throughout the civilized and toileted 
world ; and through the women he rules the men, or 
their pockets at least). Worth was in great distress. 
His nephew had gone out in a balloon and been capt- 
ured, and there were rumors that his life was in 
danger. I promised to ascertain his fate, if possible, 
and prepared a letter to Count Bismarck, which Mr. 
Washburne signed. Bismarck replied most prompt- 
ly, as he always did. And here let me state that 
during the siege, at the request of anxious wives and 
parents, we often addressed inquiries to German 
Head-quarters to ascertain the fate of a husband or 
a son, and that these inquiries always received the 
promptest and kindest attention. To the inquiry 
about young Worth, Bismarck replied that he had 
been captured attempting to cross the Prussian lines 



CARRIER-PIGEONS. 185 

in a balloon ; that to cross the Prussian lines in the 
air was like crossing them on the land ; and that the 
person caught attempting it would be similarly pun- 
ished ; that young Worth was in prison, and would 
be kept there for a few months, to teach others not 
to attempt the same thing ; but that no other harm 
had happened, or would happen, to him. I sent for 
Worth, and read him the letter. He was much re- 
lieved, and expressed himself very grateful. Some 
years later a relative of mine took the material for 
a dress to Worth, and asked him to make it up. 
Think of the audacity of such a request ! But 
Worth did it. If gratitude is to be measured not 
by the magnitude of the favor conferred, but by the 
sacrifice made by him who confers it, then Worth's 
gratitude stands out in unequaled grandeur. 

But while with the help of balloons the Parisians 
managed very well to send letters from Paris, it was 
no easy task to receive them. The pigeon experi- 
ment proved a failure. No doubt pigeons can be 
trained to do their work tolerably well, and the 
French Government now has a large collection of 
carriers at the Jardin d'Acclimatation. But during 
the siege very few succeeded in reaching home. A 
carrier will scarcely ever make a two days' journey. 



1 86 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

If night overtakes him, lie goes astray, misled per- 
haps by siren wood - pigeons. In winter, too, the 
days are short, snow-storms blind him, and hawks 
pounce upon him. One of the canards circulated in 
Paris was that the Prussians trained hawks for this 
purpose. The instinct of the animal, too, seems to 
teach it to fly northward only. Two or three times 
a carrier arrived safely, bringing with it one of those 
marvels of scientific skill, a photographic letter. 
The microscope revealed the contents of a good-sized 
newspaper transferred to a scrap of paper that a pig- 
eon could carry under its wing. 

Some of the French residing in London took ad- 
vantage of the "agony column" of the Times to 
send news to their friends. They had faith in the 
ubiquity of the great journal, and their faith was re- 
warded. I doubt if you could so hedge in a city 
that the Times would not penetrate it. Our Lega- 
tion in London sent it to us. I received one num- 
ber a week. In it I found multitudes oiprieres ad- 
dressed to Mr. Washburne, and some to myself, beg- 
ging us to inform Mr. So-and-so, or Madame Blank, 
that their wife, or husband, or children, were at such 
and such a place, and all well. "When these mes- 
sages were purely personal, we delivered them. If 



CORRESPONDENCE. 187 

they were in cipher, or susceptible of a double mean- 
ing, we did not. I remember finding a message in 
cipher, and addressed to the Minister of War. I not 
only did not deliver it, but I burned it for fear that 
the favor of receiving our letters and papers accord- 
ed us by the German Government might be abused. 
About two days before the jour de Van, I received a 
Times of December 23d, for the Germans purpose- 
ly delayed our bag, probably that the news, should 
it become known to the French Government, might 
not be acted on by it, to the detriment of German 
military operations. The " agony column " was fall 
of messages to besieged relatives. I thought that the 
Parisians could receive no more acceptable presents 
for their New - year's - day, so I copied all the mes- 
sages which had addresses and sent them by mail. 
But some had no addresses. How the writers ever 
expected them to reach their destinations, I do not 
understand. I copied them too, however, and sent 
them to the Gaulois. On New-year's morning that 
journal published them. In a few days it received 
grateful letters, thanking the editors warmly, and 
offering to pay a share of the expense, " which must 
have been great." The Gaulois replied, declining 
all payment, but modestly assuming great credit to 



1 88 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

itself for its " unparalleled enterprise," and assuring 
its correspondents that it should continue to spare 
no expense to procure them news of their fami- 
lies. 

The Prussian officers, too, at head-quarters not un- 
frequentlj sent in letters, with the request that we 
would distribute them. I remember once receiving 
from Count Solms, who had been charge d) affaires 
at Paris after the departure of the Embassador, a 
letter forwarded by him, without address, without 
signature, and without date. I waited a few days, 
thinking that other letters might refer to it, and that 
the owner would call and claim it. ISTo one came. 
As the difficulties increased, of course I was the 
more determined to trace out the owner. Every 
thing else failing, I read the letter, to try to obtain 
a clue. Fortunately, I found the name of Mr. Hen- 
ri Blount. I knew Mr. Blount, and knew that his 
father was in Paris. I wrote him, and told him the 
circumstances. He replied that if I would trust him 
with the letter, he thought that he could find the 
owner. He took it to the Jockey Club at dinner- 
time, and asked if there was any gentleman there 
whose name was Charles, and whose wife's name was 
Anna. A gentleman immediately claimed it, but 



CORRESPONDENCE. 189 

after a glance reluctantly gave it up. Another 
claimed it, and turned out to be the right man. 

I had rather an amusing correspondence with 
Count Solms in reference to this letter and other 
matters. I give two or three of the letters which 
passed between us, as showing that we contrived to 
enjoy ourselves after a fashion in Paris, notwith- 
standing the rigors of the siege. I give the letters 
as written. One of them is, perhaps, better adapted 
to the French language than to its more austere sis- 
ter English. 

"Paris, le 13 Decembre, ISTO. 

"MoN Chee Comte, — Yotre lettre n'est pas vrai- 
ment d'un " interet palpitant," mais vous etes bien 
disciplines vous autres Prussiens, et j'adore la disci- 
pline. IS^ous voyons les resultats. 

" Neanmoins, il puisse etre permis a un neutre de 
vous remercier de vos anxietes a son ^gard. Mais 
il ne meurt pas absolument de faim. J'ai dine, il y 
a quatre jours, chez un restaurateur bien connu, en 
compagnie de quatre jeunes gens que vous connaissez 
bien. I^ous avons mange un cochon-de-lait, un ca- 
nard roti, des truffes et du beurre frais. Ce n'est pas 
la famine §a — tout arrose de Chateau Margaux de '50. 
Ne croyez pas que dans ces temps ci j'ai commande 
un tel diner de Sybarite moi-meme. J'ai ete invite. 
Yoila pourquoi je ne puis rien vous dire de I'addition. 



190 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

" J'espere qu'on ne trouvera rien de compromet- 
tant dans cette lettre excepte pour le cochon-de-lait. 
Lni il a ete bien compromis. 

" Je suis tonjoiirs a vos ordres pour envoyer des 
lettres de famille de vos amis. 

" Yotre devoue, etc., etc., etc. 

"Comme je plains vous autres pauvres Prussiens 
enfermes hors de Paris !" 

" Versailles, Ic 1*7 Decembre, "70. 

^' MoN Cher Colonel, — Merci de votre amusante 
lettre. Le menu qu'elle contenait m'a completement 
tranquillise, et la solidity de votre repas me fait es- 
perer que vous jouissez encore des forces physiques 
necessaires pour que je puisse me permettre de vous 
prier de vouloir bien vous charger de la distribution 
des lettres que j'ai I'honneur de vous envoyer ci- 
joints. Mille amities de votre tres-discipline, 

'' F. SOLMS." 
*' Paris, le 25 Decembre, '70. 

" MoN Cher Comte, — J'ai regu votre billet du 17, 
et je me suis hate d'envoyer les lettres y incluses. 
Quelques-unes j'ai livrees moi-meme ; les autres je les 
ai mises a la poste. 

" Depuis le repas dont la solidite a tant frappe vo- 
tre esprit, je suis heureux de vous dire que j'ai mange 
quelques-uns encore plus solides. Que pensez-vous 
de lard sale aux haricots — pas verts? Je me suis 



CORRESPONDENCE. 1 9 1 

trouve transporte aux premiers jours de notre petite 
guerre en Kansas, au Grand-Ouest, il y a 16 ans. 

" Nous avons une nouvelle idee a Paris, une idee 
tout-a-fait parisienne. Connaissez-vous la cause de 
la guerre? Evidemment non. Eh bien, la Provi- 
dence a trouve que les vieilles races d'Europe com- 
mencent a se degenerer. Elle desire les melanger un 
peu. II y a probablement 350,000 soldats fran^ais 
prisonniers en Allemagne ; il y a peut-etre 600,000 
soldats allemands sur le territoire frangais. Yous 
voyez, ou plutot vous verrez, les resultats. Yoila 
I'idee que j'ai entendu developpee avec beaucoup 
d'eloquence par la belle marquise de a une pe- 
tite soiree oil j'ai eu I'honneur d'assister il y a quel- 
ques jours. Je la livre, gratuitement bien entendu, 
au George Bancroft de I'avenir — ' La cause et les re- 
sultats de la guerre de 1870.' 

^' Yous voyez que nous tachons de nous amuser 
encore a Paris. 

" Agreez, etc., etc., etc." 

To be in exclusive receipt of news during a siege 
is gratifying to one's vanity, but it has its decidedly 
disagreeable side. I doubt if the siege were to be- 
gin again if Mr. Washbume would accept a bag con- 
taining any thing but his official dispatches and his 
family letters. If we gave the Parisians news, they 
said that we gave them only bad news. If we with- 



192 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

held it, they said that we were withholding the news 
of French victories. I speak of what was said in 
the workmen's clnbs, and by the inferior press ; the 
better classes and the more respectable newspapers 
found no fault. Then General Moltke complained 
that we abused our privilege. His scouts had in- 
tercepted a balloon letter, in which the writer spoke 
of the facility of receiving letters through the Lega- 
tion, and instructed her correspondent to write under 
cover to me. That clever writer, too, Labouchere, 
" The Besieged Eesident," told in the columns of 
the Daily News how small a matter it was to be 
shut up in Paris. "Go to the Legation of the 
United States on any day, and there you find the 
latest London journals lying on the table." All this 
was nuts to General Moltke, for he had opposed our 
receiving our bag, but had been overruled by the 
King on the request of Count Bismarck. Bismarck 
wrote to Mr. Washburn e, calling his attention to 
Moltke's complaint. Washburne replied. After 
statins: the circumstances under which I had author- 
ized a letter to be sent under cover to me, for an 
American lady whose daughter was sick with the 
small-pox at Brussels, he proceeded to say that both 
he and I had endeavored honorably to discharge our 



WASHBURNE'S ANSWER. 193 

duties as neutrals; that we had acted according to 
the best of our judgments under this sense of duty ; 
that we proposed to continue to act as we had done ; 
and that if the German authorities could not trust 
us, they had better stop the bag altogether, with the 
exception, of course, of the dispatches from our Gov- 
ernment. At the same time he sent back nearly ^\q 
hundred letters which had been sent us without au- 
thority, and which had not been delivered, as the 
best possible proof that he had not abused his priv- 
ilege. Washburne's letter concluded as follows : 

" Before closing this communication, I trust your 
Excellency will pardon me a further observation. 
For the period of six months I have been charged 
with the delicate, laborious, and responsible duty of 
protecting your countrymen in Paris. Of the man- 
ner in which these duties, having relation to both 
belligerents, have been performed, I do not propose 
to speak. I am content to abide by the record made 
up in the State Department at Washington. But I 
can state that there has never been a time when 
these duties have involved graver consequences and 
responsibilities than at the present moment. As I 
have expressed to you before, I have been astonished 
at the number of Germans who, as it turns out, were 
left in the city when the gates were closed. Having 
exhausted their last resources, and finding themselves 



194 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

in a state of the most absolute destitution, thej have 
applied to me for protection and aid, which I have 
so far been enabled to extend to them from the 
funds placed in my hands by the Royal Govern- 
ment. The number of these people amounts to-day 
to two thousand three hundred and eighty-five ; and 
it is certain, had there not been some one to protect 
and aid them, many must have inevitably perished 
of cold and starvation. My position in relation to 
these people and to your Government is known to 
the people of Paris, and as the siege wears on, and 
the exasperation is intensified, I now find myself ex- 
posed to the hostility of a certain portion of the pop- 
ulation of the city. While your military authorities 
seem to be agitated by the gravest fears in relation 
to my dispatch-bag, I am daily violently assailed by 
a portion of the Paris press as a " Prussian represent- 
ative" and a "Prussian sympathizer;" and a short 
time since it was proposed in one of the clubs that I 
should be hanged — rather a pleasant diversion in these 
dreary days of siege through which we are passing. 

" I will only add that, so long as I am the diplo- 
matic representative of my country in Paris, I shall 
discharge every duty, even to the end, and in the 
face of every circumstance, that I owe to my own 
Government, and every duty that I have by its di- 
rection assumed toward the subjects of the North 
German Confederation. 

" I have the honor, etc., etc." 



BISMARCK'S REPLY. 195 

Bismarck replied with an apology. He said he 
knew that the privilege accorded us had not been 
abused, and he was satisfied that it w^ould not be ; 
that the military authorities had called his attention 
to this matter, and that it was therefore his duty to 
call Mr. Washburne's attention to it ; that the bag 
would continue to be sent as usual ; and that he re- 
turned the five hundred letters, with full authority 
to Mr. "Washburne to deliver them if he saw fit. I 
heard afterward that Bismarck was delighted with 
Washburne's letter, and took special pleasure in 
sending a copy to General Moltke. 



196 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



CHAPTEK XYI. 

Burnside's Peace Mission. — Sent in by Bismarck. — Interview with 
Trochu. — The Sympathetic Tear. — Question of Kevictuahnent. — 
Failure of Negotiations. — Point of Vanity. — Flags of Truce. — 
French accused of Violation of Parole. — Question of the Francs- 
Tireurs. — Foreigners refused Permission to leave Paris. — Wash- 
bume insists. — Permission granted. — Departure of Americans. — 
Scenes at Creteil. 

Eaelt in the month of October we were surprised 
by a visit from General Burnside. He happened to 
be at Versailles, more from curiosity than any other 
motive, where, through General Sheridan, he became 
quite intimate with Count Bismarck. Bismarck 
asked him one day if he would like to go into Paris 
on a peace mission. Lord Granville had been very 
urgent with the King to grant the French an armis- 
tice, and had induced him to offer it, with a view to 
an election. There would be no difficulty, Bismarck 
said, on any point except that of revictualment. 
This General Moltke would not hear of. E"ot an 
ounce of food should enter Paris. " E"ow," said Bis- 
marck, " that Government of the l^ational Defense 



BURNS IDE'S VISIT. 197 

is not the wisest in the world, but they are not such 
d — d fools as to stand out on a point like that. 
There will be an armistice, and an armistice means 
peace. If there is peace, England will get the cred- 
it of it ; and as the United States represents us, I 
would rather that you had the credit of it." Burn- 
side came in accordingly, accompanied by Mr. Paul 
Forbes, who was promoted to the rank of aid-de- 
camp for the occasion, and dubbed a colonel. The 
Prussians could not realize the idea of a general 
traveling without his aid. A meeting was appointed 
with Trochu, and I went as interpreter. His head- 
quarters were at the Louvre, in a large and conven- 
ient apartment, occupied, under the Empire, by M. 
Kouher. Before Burnside had stated the object of 
his visit, Trochu made us a speech. He spoke well 
for nearly haK an hour. He told us that France 
had been very wicked; that she had fallen away 
from the true Catholic faith ; that infidelity and 
•skepticism were rampant in the land ; that the mis- 
fortunes which had come upon her were deserved; 
that they were visitations for the sins of the peo- 
ple ; but that, when they had repented and humbled 
themselves, he had faith that the punishment would 
pass from them. He continued in this strain for 



198 CAMF, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

full twenty minutes, speaking very eloquently ; then 
pulled out his handkerchief, and saying, " Excuse 
my emotion," he wept. After this he came to busi- 
ness. Burnside confined himself most conscientious- 
ly to the exact tenor of his message. Trochu made 
repeated suggestions of such and such possibilities, 
but Burnside refused to follow him. He knew 
nothing but his instructions. As I had feared, 
Trochu bristled up at the no-revictualment clause. 
" Such a condition had never been heard of. From 
the most remote antiquity, there had always been 
revictualment allowed in case of armistice, so much 
per head per diem." He gave us at that time no 
positive answer, but said he would discuss the mat- 
ter with his colleagues. Negotiations failed upon 
this very point. The French Government called it 
a point of honor. It was rather a point of vanity. 
We did not need the provisions, as the result showed 
we had food enough for three months. Yet, for that 
barren privilege of bringing in food which w^as not 
needed, the Government of the N^ational Defense 
rejected the armistice. They could then have made 
peace, with the loss of one province and two milliards. 
They continued the war, and lost two provinces and 
five milliards (one thousand millions of dollars). 



GENERAL TROCHU. 199 

It must be remembered that the members of the 
Government of the National Defense were self-ap- 
pointed. They were always preaching of their ear- 
nest desire to appeal to the people. Here was the 
opportunity, and they rejected it. It is a pleasant 
thing to appoint yourself and your particular friends 
rulers of a great country like France, and one does 
not readily resign the position. The people might 
not re-appoint you. 

As we left the Louvre, I said to Burnside, " If 
France is to be saved, it will not be by that man." 
" I don't know that — I don't know that," he replied. 
He was evidently impressed by Trochu's eloquence 
and emotion, and ready tear. 

It has been stated that Bismarck refused to en- 
ter into negotiations with the Government of the 
]N"ational Defense ; that he would not recognize its 
self -assumed authority, and considered that there 
was no evidence that it was recognized by the ma- 
jority of the French people ; for there were riots in 
the great cities of the South, and disturbances in 
Brittany. Bismarck recognized it or not, as suited 
his policy, and that policy was exclusively the in- 
terests of Germany. Had Trochu waived the food 
question, Bismarck would have promptly recognized 



200 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

him and liis colleagues, so far, at least, as to make 
an armistice with them, as he afterward did. 

Burnside returned that afternoon to Yersailles. I 
accompanied him as far as Sevres. Trochu sent a 
carriage for us. It was odd to find one's self in one 
of the old imperial barouches, drawn by the famous 
post-horses of the Emperor. We drove through the 
Bois by Kothschild's house, and so to the broken 
bridge at Sevres. In the Bois desolation reigned. 
The trees were cut down within three hundred yards 
of the ramparts, the roads torn up and torpedoes 
planted in them. The swans had gone to feed the 
hungry soldiers, and the ducks, to avoid the same 
fate, kept wisely out in the middle of the lake. 
When we had reached the bridge, a bugle sounded 
on the French side, and a white flag was displayed. 
It was soon answered from the German side, and a 
similar flag was raised. At once the French troops 
lounged from under cover, their hands in their pock- 
ets, and down to the water's edge. The Prussians 
were kept concealed. They saw us, no doubt, but 
not one of them was to be seen. Presently, a Prus- 
sian officer descended the street, followed by a flag- 
bearer. He stalks across the bridge to the broken 
arch, turns, takes the flag from the bearer, and 



VIOLA TION OF PAROLE. 2 o I 

plants the staff in tlie bridge, with an air as if to 
say " Touch that, if you dare." The French soldiers 
are evidently impressed. They mutter, " Yoici des 
militaiTesP The officer asks in French, " Are those 
the American generals ?" " They are." " Then let 
them pass." Burnside requests permission to take 
Antoine with him, the messenger of the Legation. 
"Is he an American?" "Yes." "Then he can 
come, of course." The steam-launch puffs up, and 
the party cross. I cross with them, but return at 
once to the French side. The soldiers disappear, 
the flag is lowered, and the firing recommences. I 
have been rather minute in this description, as the 
same ceremonies were observed twice a week, when 
we sent and received our dispatch-bags. 

The German Government complained on several 
occasions of the violation of flags of truce. These 
complaints were addressed to the French authorities 
through us. Indeed, every communication address- 
ed to the French Government and its replies were 
sent through the Legation. This kept us busy even 
during the quiet days of the siege. The violation of 
parole was another fruitful source of correspondence. 
The Germans sent us a list of over twenty-five offi- 
cers, whom they alleged had broken their paroles. 

9* 



CAMPy COURT, AND SIEGE. 



In some cases — that of General Ducrot, for instance 
— there are two sides to the question. He claimed 
that it was a legitimate escape, and the French press 
was unanimously of his opinion. There was another 
branch of correspondence that occupied a good deal 
of our time. The two governments, to their credit 
be it spoken, did not allow the war to interfere with 
the administration of justice. Under their treaties 
each Government was bound to serve upon its own 
subjects all legal documents in civil suits emana- 
ting from the courts of the other. This was done 
throughout the war, and they all passed through our 
hands. 

There was, too, correspondence between the two 
hostile governments upon other subjects. Among 
them I recollect one in relation to the Francs-Tireurs. 
The Germans treated these irregulars as guerrillas. 
The French remonstrated. The Germans answered 
that they had no uniform ; that they wore the blue 
blouse, which is the national dress of the French 
peasant; and that they ought to wear something 
which could be distinguished at rifle range. I do 
not remember how the matter was settled, but I be- 
lieve that the Francs-Tireurs gradually disappeared, 
absorbed in the Mobiles. 



PERMISSION TO LEAVE PARIS REFUSED. 203 

Not long after Burnside's mission I paid a second 
visit to Trocliu. Mr. Washburne had applied to the 
Germans for permission for Americans and other 
foreigners to leave Paris. The King accorded it at 
once. Any American could leave on Mr. Wash- 
burne's pass, any other foreigner on the same pass, 
provided that his name had first been submitted to 
and accepted by the German authorities. Having 
obtained this concession, Mr.Washburne next applied 
to the French Government for its permission. To his 
surprise, it was refused. He could not understand 
it. That the Germans should wish to keep in the 
city a number of " useless mouths " to help consume 
the provision, was natural, but that the French, who, 
for the same reason, ought to have wished to get rid 
of them, should refuse to let them go, was inconceiv- 
able. But Washburne was not the man to sit down 
quietly under a refusal in a matter like this. He in- 
sisted that they must go, and should go. Favre was 
evidently on his side, and we had reason to believe 
that he was backed by some, at least, of his colleagues. 
Trochu opposed the departure for fear of the effect 
upon Belleville. If I had not heard him say so, I 
could not have believed it. 

As Washburne insisted, and Favre was in favor 



204 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

of the permission being given, an interview was ar- 
ranged with Trochu. The " Governor of Paris," as 
he loved to call himself, made us another oration. 
It was very much a rehash of the first. He then 
stated that he had been unwilling that the " stran- 
gers " should leave Paris ; it looked like ^* rats de- 
serting the sinking ship ;" he feared the effect upon 
Belleville. But out of regard for Mr. Washbume, 
and in deference to the opinion of some of his col- 
leagues, he would now consent. He added that he 
would send an aid-de-camp to Belleville, to spread 
the report that it was the diplomatic corps leaving 
the capital. I looked at him with astonishment. 
That he should tell a lie was bad enough, but that 
he should tell it out of fear of that wretched mob 
was a degree of weakness I w^as not prepared for. 

Permission having been given, no time was lost in 
the preparations for departure. On the 24th of Oc- 
tober, forty -eight Americans and several Russians 
went out by Creteil. A number of English started, 
but were turned back. Their names had not been 
sent to Versailles in season. Permission was subse- 
quently received, and they left Paris a few days 
later. We drove to the French outposts, and thence 
sent forward the flag with an officer of Trochu's 



GERMAN SCOUTING. 205 

staff, and Mr. Washburne's private secretary, Mr. 
Albert Ward, who was charged with the necessary 
arrangements on our side. While we waited, a Ger- 
man picket of six men advanced toward us, dodg- 
ing behind the trees, muskets cocked, and fingers on 
trigger. I confess I was not much impressed with 
this specimen of German scouting. It looked too 
much like playing at North American Indian. 
There were some twenty traveling - carriages, open 
and closed, filled with ladies, and piled up with bag- 
gage. The party had as little of a military look as 
can well be imagined, and yet the picket advanced 
as if they feared an ambush. 

The necessary arrangements having been made, 
we proceeded to the German outposts. Here the 
Prussian officers verified the list, calling the roll 
name by name, and taking every precaution to iden- 
tify the individuals. I heard afterward, however, 
that a Frenchman of some prominence had escaped 
disguised as a coachman. 

I met here a young American, who was living not 
far from Versailles, and who was known to Count 
Bismarck. I gave him a couple of morning papers. 
That evening he dined with Bismarck, and offered 
to sell him the papers for a quart bottle of Cham- 



2o6 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

pagne for the big one, and a pint bottle for the lit- 
tle one. Bismarck offered a quart bottle for both; 
but my American indignantly rejected the terms: 
so Bismarck accepted his, and paid the bottle and a 
half. I record this as perhaps the only diplomatic 
triumph ever scored against Count de Bismarck. 



MOB SEIZE hOtEL DE VILLE. 207 



CHAPTEE XYII. 

Mob seize Hotel de Ville. — "Thanksgiving" in Paris. — Prices of 
Food. — Paris Rats. — Menagerie Meat. — Horse-meat. — Eatable only 
as Mince. — Government Interference. — Sorties. — Are Failures. — 
Le Bourget taken by French. — Retaken by Prussians. — French 
Naval Officers. — Belleville National Guard. — Their Poetry. — Blun- 
dering. — Sheridan's Opinion of German Army. 

Late in October, M. Thiers came into Paris on a 
peace mission, but met with no success. He brought 
the news of the fall of Metz. There was great ex- 
citement in Paris. The mob collected, marched to 
the Hotel de Yille, and took possession. They ar- 
rested several members of the Government, and shut 
them up — others escaped. They then proceeded to 
depose the Government, and to set up one of their 
own. Ducrot begged Trochu to let him fire on the 
mob ; he could disperse them, he said, in five min- 
utes. The Mobiles were eager to fire ; for the Mo- 
biles and the National Guard lived like cat and dog 
together. Trochu would not consent. The insur- 
gents remained in possession of the Hotel de Yille 
all that night, and the next day gradually melted 



2o8 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

away. It was one of those unfortunate mob tri- 
iimplis which contributed not a little to the success 
of the Commune. 

The siege found about two hundred Americans 
in Paris. I ought to say " citizens of the United 
States ;" but we have taken to ourselves the broader 
title, and in Europe it is generally accorded to us. 
Of these two hundred about fifty went away, and 
about one hundred and fifty remained. The French 
live from hand to mouth, buying only wdiat is nec- 
essary for the day, and laying no stores in. This 
comes, I think, from their system of living in apart- 
ments, and the want of store-rooms. The Americans, 
as a rule, laid in a stock of provisions. The grocers 
of Paris had imported a large quantity of canned 
food for the use of the colonie americaine, which was 
then, and still is, a power in Paris. The greater part 
of the colonie having gone, there remained a quantity 
of canned vegetables, fruit, deviled ham and turkey, 
oysters, lobsters, etc., etc., and, above all, hominy and 
grits. The French knew nothing of these eatables 
till late in the siege, when they discovered their mer- 
its. In the mean time the Americans had bought 
up nearly all there was on hand. 

As Thanksgiving approached we determined to 



PRICES OF FOOD. 209 

celebrate it, notwithstanding our supposed forlorn 
condition. Some thirty of us met at a restaurant on 
the Boulevard, where we feasted on the traditional 
turkey, or, rather, on two of them, at twelve dollars 
apiece. Under the circumstances, we had quite an 
Epicurean repast. Mr. "Washburne presided, and 
made a humorous speech, dwelling provokingly on 
the good things our unbesieged countrymen were 
then enjoying at home. Professor Shepherd, of 
Chicago, was present, and made some clever and ap- 
propriate remarks. The Professor has written one 
of the most readable and reliable books upon the 
siege I have met with. 

Prices of food in Paris had now reached their 
height. Turkeys, as I have said, sold at $12 apiece, 
chickens at $6, cats $1.60, rats 15 cents, dogs from 
80 cents up, according to size and fat. There was a 
refinement in rats. They were known as the brew- 
ery rat and the sewer rat. The brewery rat was 
naturally the most delicate titbit, and as the siege 
progressed and but little food found its way into the 
sewers, the sewer rats diminished wofully in num- 
bers, while their brethren of the brewery increased. 
I know of no better evidence of the severity of the 
cold, and the scarcity of food during that winter, 



2IO CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

than an incident that came under my own observa- 
tion. I was called by the concierge of the building 
to look at the apartment of an American gentleman, 
on the floor below me. The rats had made their 
way with great gymnastic agility into the kitchen ; 
they had thrown down and broken two or three 
dishes which the cook had imperfectly washed, and 
on which there remained a little grease. They had 
then made their way into the salons and bedrooms, 
had gnawed and burrowed into the sofas and mat- 
tresses, and there several lay, dead of cold and 
hunger. 

But there was no time in Paris when money 
would not buy good food, though it could not buy 
fuel, for that had been seized by the Government. 
Yery late in the siege a man brought to the Lega- 
tion a piece of filet de ho&uf of six pounds, for which 
he asked four dollars a pound. Mr. Washburne and 
I did not indulge in such luxuries, living principal- 
ly upon our national pork and beans, and the poetic 
fish-ball. A young American happened to be in the 
office, however, who took it at once, and paid his 
twenty-four dollars. 

In the suburbs of Paris food was more abundant. 
I breakfasted in December with a French general, 



FRENCH ARMY BREAKFASTS. 2II 

who commanded one of the outposts. We liad beef, 
eggs, ham, etc., and, from what I heard, I should say- 
that he and his staff breakfasted as well every day. 
These noonday breakfasts, by -the -way, ruined the 
French army. I reached my general's head-quarters 
at half -past eleven. He and one of his staff were 
smoking cigars and drinking absinthe. At twelve 
we breakfasted bountifully, as I have said, and with 
Champagne and other wines, followed by coffee, 
brandy, and more cigars. We got through break- 
fast about three o'clock. This was on an outpost, 
in presence of the enemy. Had he attacked, what 
would the general and his staff have been worth? 
They were very far from being intoxicated, but cer- 
tainly their heads were not clear, or their judgments 
sound. 

The Prussians soon learned the French habits, and 
attacked them in the field when they were making 
their soup. The French soldiers could not catch up 
their soup and pocket it, and eat it at their leisure. 
They consequently lost not only their breakfasts, 
but frequently their cooking utensils too. The Ger- 
mans, on the other hand, had a liberal ration of meat 
{fleisch — what a disagreeable word !) — one pound 
and a half per diem. But, meat failing, they always 



212 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

had a German sausage and a piece of bread in their 
haversacks, and could eat as thej marched. Yet 
such is the power of habit in France, and the 
strength of tradition, that I suppose the French sol- 
dier will continue to all time to prepare his soup, 
even at the expense of defeat. 

Without stirring from Paris, I had the opportu- 
nity during the siege to taste as many varieties of 
wild meat as the greatest of travelers — as Humboldt 
himself. It was found to be impossible to procure 
food for the animals at the Jardin d'Acclimatation, 
and they were sold and killed. They were bought 
mostly by the enterprising English butcher of the 
Avenue Friedland. I indulged from time to time 
in small portions of elephant, yak, camel, reindeer, 
porcupine, etc., at an average rate of four dollars 
a pound. Of all these, reindeer is the best ; it 
has a fine flavor of venison. Elephant is tolera- 
bly good. Some of my readers may remember the 
charming twin elephants, Castor and Pollux, who 
carried children round the Garden on their backs, 
in 1867 to 1869. They were done to death with 
chassepots — shot through the head. I eat a slice of 
Castor. It was tolerably good only ; did very well 
in time of siege. But all these meats are but poor 



HORSE -MEAT. 213 



substitutes for beef and mutton ; and when travelers 
tell us of the delights of elephant's trunk or buffa- 
lo's hump, depend upon it, it is the hunter's appetite 
that gives the flavor. 

The main -stay of the population, in the way of 
fresh meat, was horse. These were requisitioned, 
and every horseholder having more than one was 
compelled to contribute toward feeding the popula- 
tion. The horses were liberally paid for, so much 
per pound. Some individuals made a very good 
thing out of it. They got in with the horse officials. 
A fine animal, requisitioned from the owner, who 
knew no better than to send it, appeared at the 
shambles. One of these gentry, with the conniv- 
ance of the official in charge, would take him, and 
substitute an old screw of equal or greater weight. 
I know an American in Paris who is daily aggra- 
vated by seeing at the Bois a beautiful mare he once 
owned, and whose loss he had deeply deplored, but 
had been comforted by the reflection that she had 
perished to feed the starving Parisians. 

The horse -meat was rationed and sold by the 
Government at reasonable prices : nine ounces and 
a half were allowed per diem to each adult. There 
is a refinement in horse-meat, as in rats. A young 



214 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

light-gray is tender and juicy. Black is the worst 
color ; the meat is coarse and tough. But horse- 
flesh is poor stuff at best. It has a sweet, sickening 
flavor. Some people spoke highly of it as soup ; 
others when marine. The only way I found it eat- 
able was as mince mixed with potato. 

From horse-meat to beef is but a slight transition, 
but one more easily made on paper than on the ta- 
ble in those days. The interference of the French 
Government in almost every detail of private life 
is something of which happily we know nothing in 
this country. You can not cut down a tree on your 
own land without its permission. During the siege 
you could not kill your own ox without leave from 
the Minister of Commerce. If you had providently 
laid in a larger supply of fuel than he thought you 
needed, he took possession of it, and paid you Gov- 
ernment prices for what was then almost priceless. 
An American lady resident in Paris had a cow. 
The cow ran dry, and she wanted to convert it into 
beef. She came to the Legation to secure Mr. 
Washburne's intervention to obtain for her permis- 
sion to kill her o^vn cow. At first it was refused, 
and it required no inconsiderable amount of diplo- 
matic correspondence and the waste of many pages 



SORTIES. 215 



of good foolscap, with a large expenditure of red 
tape and sealing-wax, before the permission was ob- 
tained. 

I have said very little of the sorties from Paris. 
The subject is not a pleasant one. There were five 
hundred thousand armed men in Paris, and only 
three hundred and fifty thousand outside. Yet but 
one serious sortie was ever made. This was to the 
south-east, under Ducrot ; and the fighting was ob- 
stinate, and lasted two days. Ducrot had published 
a proclamation to the effect that he should come 
back victorious, or be brought back dead. He was 
defeated, but marched quietly back nevertheless. 
We are unaccustomed among Anglo-Saxons to this 
style of proclamation, and call it bombast. I am 
told, however, by those better acquainted with the 
French character than I am, that it has its effect 
upon the French soldier, and is therefore allowable. 

The garrison of Paris should have made a sortie 
every night, sometimes a thousand men, and some- 
times a hundred thousand, and in two or three quar- 
ters at once. Their central position gave them ev- 
ery opportunity to do this to advantage. Had they 
done so, they would soon have worn out the Ger- 
mans with constant alertes^ and with comparative- 



2i6 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

Ij little fatigue to themselves. But this, too, was 
mismanaged. They surprised and took Le Bourget, 
a little village to the north-east. Of course we all 
supposed that it would be strongly garrisoned, and 
the garrison well supported. Not at all. Two days 
later the Prussians retook it. The garrison made a 
most gallant defense, but they were entirely unsup- 
ported. Not a regiment of the immense army in 
Paris came to their assistance, No possible excuse 
can be given for this abandonment. 

The loss of Le Bourget produced great discontent 
among the Parisians ; and Trochu was blamed, and 
most justly. He made an effort to retake it, but in 
vain. The sailors, under their gallant officers, made 
a spirited assault, but were repulsed with great loss ; 
for they were not supported by the soldiers. The 
officers made every effort to lead them on, but they 
would not assault. 

The French naval officers are a very superior class 
of men. They compare most favorably with those 
of any other nation. They are painstaking, intelli- 
gent, and well-informed. Under their command the 
sailors fought gallantly during the war, for there 
was a large number of them detailed to the army, 
as they had little to do at sea. They felt strongly 



BL UN BERING. 2 1 7 



the deterioration of their sister service, the army. 
At Versailles I was once dining at a restaurant near 
a naval officer. An army officer, accompanied by 
two non-commissioned officers, entered, called loud- 
ly for dinner, and made a great disturbance. They 
were evidently the worse for liquor. I overheard 
the naval officer muttering to himself, ^''Cette jpauvre 
armee frangaise ! cettepauvre armee frangaise P^ 

There was always blundering. They had shut up 
a brigade of cavalry in Paris. Jerome Bonaparte, 
who commanded one of the regiments, told me he 
had no idea why he was ordered in, unless it was to 
eat up his horses. This they proceeded to do so soon 
as they were fairly trained, and so doubled in value. 
Trochu organized a sortie to the north-west. Two 
columns left Paris one night by different gates, and 
were to take up their positions simultaneously and 
attack at daylight. He forgot that one road crossed 
the other, and that one column must necessarily halt 
for the other to pass. Of course one of them ar- 
rived late on the ground, and the attack failed. 
When a sortie was to be made, a flag was hoisted on 
Mount Yalerien. The Germans soon knew its mean- 
ing as well as the French, and prepared accordingly. 
An intended sortie was known at least twenty-four 

10 



2l8 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

hours before it took place, and its chances discussed 
on the boulevards. The National Guard, too, with 
some honorable exceptions, would not fight. The 
heroes of Belleville howled to be led against the en- 
emy. They got as far as the barriers, and refused 
to go farther. " They were enlisted to defend Paris, 
and they would not go beyond the enceinte i the 
Eeactionists wanted to get them out, that they might 
deliver Paris over to the enemy." There was a pop- 
ular song they sung as they marched through the 
streets which perfectly illustrates their sentiments 
and character : 

" Nous partons, 

ons, ons, 
Comme des moutons, 
Comme des moutons, 
Pour la boucherie, 

rie, rie. 

" On nous massacra, 

ra, ra, 
Comme des rats, 
Comme des rats. 
Comme Bismarck rira ! 

rira !" 

An officer commanding a fort applied for re-en- 
forcements to relieve his exhausted men. They 
sent him a battalion of our Belleville gentlemen. 
The next day he sent them back, saying they had 



BL UND BRING. 2 1 9 



been drunk and fought in tlie trenches all night, and 
that he preferred to get along as well as he could 
with his overworked garrison. 

Trochu planned a sortie to the south-east. It was 
necessary to cross the Marne. The troops arrived 
at the appointed hour, but the pontoons did not. A 
whole day was lost, and the sortie was une affaire 
Tiianquee. Outside, things were nearly as badly man- 
aged. !N"o serious effort was ever made to cut the 
German lines of communication. The railways to 
the east were all-important to them, not so much for 
provisions (for they drew these mostly from France), 
but for ammunition. With the enormous guns in 
use, the transportation of ammunition was a serious 
matter, taxing the railroad facilities of the Germans 
to the uttermost. An interruption might have com- 
pelled them to raise the siege. Sheridan, who, be- 
ing at the King's head-quarters, and treated with the 
greatest kindness and attention, naturally sympa- 
thized with the Germans, could not help exclaiming 
that if he had been outside with thirty thousand cav- 
alry, he would have made the King * * * Well, it 
is not worth while to quote Sheridan's exact words ; 
they were a little in the style of the commander of 
the Imperial Guard at Waterloo ; but the substance 



CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



of them was, that an active officer with a good cav- 
alry force could have so broken up the communi- 
cations of the German army as to compel it to 
raise the siege. For the G-ermans are not particular- 
ly handy at repairing a broken road or bridge ; and a 
German general does not, as the rebel soldier said of 
Sherman, carry a duplicate tunnel in his pocket. 

As I am quoting Sheridan, let me here record his 
opinion of the German army. He Relieved that they 
were brave soldiers. They were well disciplined, 
well led, and had every appearance of thorough sol- 
diers ; but he could not say so positively, for, so far 
as his observation went, they had never met with 
any serious resistance. He looked upon the German 
army as in no respect superior to one of our great 
armies at the close of the war — the Army of the 
Potomac, for instance — except as regards the staff. 
That was far superior to ours, and to any staff in Eu- 
rope. Their field telegraph, too, excited his admira- 
tion. It had been borrowed from us, but improved. 



NATIONAL GUARD. 221 



CHAPTEE XYIII. 

The National Guard. — Its Composition. — The American Ambulance. 
— Its Organization. — Its Success. — Dr. Swmburne, Chief Surgeon. 
— The Tent System. — Small Mortality. — Poor Germans in Paris. — 
Bombardment by Germans. — Wantonness of Artillery-men. — Bad 
News from the Loire. — " Le Plan Trochu." — St. Genevieve to ap- 
pear. — Vinoy takes Command. — Paris surrenders. — Bourbaki de- 
feated. — Attempts Suicide. 

A GENTLEMAN of rank and great historic name, of 
approved bravery, and who had seen service as an 
officer in the French army, came one day to the 
Legation in the uniform of a private. I asked him 
why he had enlisted, when he could so easily have 
got a commission. He replied that it was true he 
could easily have got a company in the National 
Guard, but before he could know his men, and they 
could know him, and he could drill and discipline 
them, they would go into action. Then they would 
inevitably run away. If he ran with them, he would 
be held responsible ; if he stood, he would be killed. 
So he had decided to enlist as a private, to stand as 
long as the rest stood, and to run away when they 



CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



ran. It struck me that this gentleman was wise in 
his generation, but that it was not precisely in this 
way that France was to be saved. 

In speaking of the l^ational Guard as I have done, 
it is proper to state that I speak of the masses, the 
workmen of Paris, and the petite tourgeoisie of most 
of the arrondissements. There were some few bat- 
talions that could be relied upon, some composed in 
part of the " gentlemen of France ;" but they were 
insufficient to leaven the whole lump. The masses, 
those who drew a franc and a half per diem for 
themselves, and seventy-five centimes for their wives, 
or for the women who lived with them — for the Gov- 
ernment of the l^ational Defense had decided that 
it was the same thing — were the turbulent, unruly, 
unsoldierly mob I have described. 

One of the most interesting and satisfactory feat- 
ures of the siege was the American ambulance. 
Here were order, system, and discipline. It was lo- 
cated on vacant lots in the Avenue de I'lmperatrice. 
It did better work than any other ambulance in 
Paris ; and there were many of them. A number of 
the wealthy people of the city gave up their hotels, 
or parts of them, for this purpose. The Press organ- 
ized an admirable ambulance, copied as much from 



AMERICAN AMBULANCE. 223 

the American as circumstances would permit. The 
Italians started one, and two or three other national- 
ities. But the American ambulance was the only 
one organized upon the tent system, which is un- 
questionably the true one. Fresh air and fresh wa- 
ter are what is needed for the wounded. It is im- 
possible to get fresh air in a building, as you get it 
in a tent. As Dr. Swinburne expressed it, " The air 
filters through the canvas." 

At the Exposition of 1867 we had a remarkably 
good exhibition of our ambulance system. It was 
due to the energy and liberality of Dr. Evans. At 
the close of the exhibition he bought the whole col- 
lection; and when the war broke out, he organized 
an ambulance association, presented it with this mate- 
rial, and gave it ten thousand francs. Other Ameri- 
cans contributed, and the enterprise was launched. 
Dr. Swinburne, a distinguished corps surgeon of our 
army, and afterward Quarantine Officer at Staten 
Island, happened to be in Paris, traveling for his 
health and amusement. He gave up his trip, and 
staid in the city, that he might be of service to the 
wounded French. He deserves much credit for his 
humanity. Dr. Johnson, a prominent American phy- 
sician in Paris, took charge of the medical depart- 



224 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

ment. Both of these gentlemen discharged their 
duties with devotion and skill, and with remarkable 
success, and without remuneration, except that they 
were decorated by the French Government. For an 
American residing at home a decoration is of very 
little account. In France it is useful. It procures 
him attention on the railways and at the restaurants. 
But it has been very much abused of late years. 
There are about one hundred thousand decoi^es in 
France, so that they now say it is the correct thing 
not to be decorated. I never heard of but one indi- 
vidual, however, who refused it, and that was from 
political motives. 

A number of American ladies and gentlemen who 
remained in Paris offered their services in the ambu- 
lance, and were enrolled as volunteer nurses. Among 
them Mr. Joseph K. Riggs was particularly conspic- 
uous by his skill and devotion. They went upon the 
field after, or even during, an engagement and pick- 
ed up the wounded. Indeed, there was quite a con- 
test among the ambulances to get possession of the 
wounded ; for while the number of the sick in Paris 
was very great, that of the wounded was compara- 
tively small. The medical director of General Du- 
crot's corps became much interested in our ambu- 



AMERICAN AMBULANCE. 225 

lance. He turned over to Dr. Swinburne the charm- 
ing house of M. Chevalier, the eminent French 
writer on political economy, and then begged him 
to take charge of the wounded of his corps. Swin- 
burne used the house as a convalescent hospital when 
his tents were full. 

So successful was his treatment that of the ampu- 
tated only one in five died ; while at the great French 
ambulance of the Grand Hotel four in five died. 
The mortality there was fearful. 

The apparatus for w^arming the tents was simple, 
but most effective. It had grown up among our 
soldiers during the war. A hole w^as made in the 
ground outside of one end of a long tent, a stove 
placed in it, and the pipe carried the whole length 
of the tent in a trench. The result was that the 
ground was thoroughly dried and warmed, and this 
warmed the whole tent. I have known the ther- 
mometer outside to be at 20° Fahrenheit, while in 
the tents it stood at 55°. The doctor said that for 
wounded men well covered up in bed 55° was bet- 
ter than 70°. 

The men were well fed, and admirably cared for 
generally. The French Government put the best 
of their stores at the disposition of the ambulances, 

10* 



2 26 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

and treated them with the greatest liberality. There 
was always plenty of canned fruit, jellies, etc., in 
Paris, so valuable in sickness. The ladies bought 
these, and brought them to the wounded. Tobacco 
was provided in the same way for the convalescents. 

The American ambulance was soon so well and so 
favorably known, that I heard of French officers who 
put cards in their pocket-books, on which they had 
written the request that if they were wounded they 
might be carried to Vanibulance americaine. 

The great drawback we had to contend with 
was the impossibility of procuring new tents. Dr. 
Swinburne told me that at home they would have 
been condemned after a month's use, and new ones 
substituted. But in Europe the cloth is not to be 
had. We use cotton cloth, the French use linen. 
Cotton is lighter, is more porous in dry and fulls in 
wet weather. The result is that the air filters 
through it in the one case, and the water does not 
penetrate it in the other. In the absence of new 
canvas, the doctor thoroughly fumigated the old 
from time to time. This answered the purpose tol- 
erably well, but did not exhibit the tent system in 
its perfection. 

We had now reached the middle of January, and 



POOR GERMANS. 227 



tlie end of the siege was rapidly ajDproaching. Tlie 
want of proper food, especially for young children, 
was producing its necessary results ; and the death- 
rate had risen from about eight hundred — which is 
the average number of weekly deaths in Paris — to 
four thousand, and this without counting those in hos- 
pital which may be set down at one thousand more. 
The number of poor Germans supported by the Lega- 
tion had also increased very greatly, and had risen to 
twenty-four hundred. "We were compelled to hire 
another room, where the weekly allowance made 
them was paid and duly entered in books kept for 
this purpose ; for every penny expended was regu- 
larly entered and vouched for. The poor German 
women were obliged to walk two or three miles on 
those cold winter days ; for the workmen's quarter is 
far from that of the Champs Elysees. Mr. Wash- 
burne pitied these poor creatures, and gave them om- 
nibus tickets for the return trip. He bought a cask 
of vin ordmaiTe^ too, and gave a glass of warm 
sweetened wine to each of them. It did them infi- 
nite good. 

Provisions were now running short; enough re- 
mained for a few days only. Even in this most 
vital matter there was blundering. A gentleman 



2 28 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

high placed in the office of the Minister of Com- 
merce, the ministere which had charge of the sup- 
plies, told Mr. AVashburne that there were provisions 
in Paris to last till March. "We could hardly credit 
it, but it came to us from such high authority that 
we were staggered. He spoke positively, and said 
he had seen the figures. After the surrender this 
gentleman met a mutual friend, and said, "I am 
afraid your minister must take me for either a liar 
or a fool. I hope I am neither. The mistake we 
made at the ministere happened in this way: the 
minister appointed two officers ; each was to take an 
account of all the food in Paris, in order that one 
account might control the other. When their state- 
ments came in, he added them together, but forgot 
to divide them by two." 

Meantime w^e were being bombarded, but after a 
very mild fashion. I have since talked with a Ger- 
man general who commanded at the quarter whence 
most of the shells entered the city. He assured me 
that there never was the slightest intention to bom- 
bard Paris. If there had been, it would have been 
done in a very different style. The German batter- 
ies fired from a height upon a fort in the hollow, 
and their shells, flying high, entered Paris. Still, 



BOMBARDMENT. 229 



when nearly two hundred lives were lost, and shells 
fell among us for nineteen days, people had a right to 
say that they were bombarded, and no Parisian will 
admit to this day that they were not. Artillery-men 
of all nations become not only very careless, but 
very wanton. The Germans were eager to hit some- 
thing, and the public buildings of the Latin Quarter 
offered a tempting mark to the gunners. I was com- 
plaining to a French officer one day of the shameful 
manner in which the French Government troops dur- 
ing the Commune bombarded the quarter of the 
Champs Elysees, a quarter inhabited almost exclu- 
sively by friends of the Government, who were long- 
ing for the troops to come in. He told me that it 
was due to the wantonness of the artillery -men, and 
cited an instance which came under his own observa- 
tion. A gunner at Mount Yalerien j)ointed out to 
the captain of the gun a cart making its slow way 
through the distant plain toward Paris, and exclaim- 
ed, " O, my officer ! see that cart carrying supplies 
to the enemy." "Where, where?" " There, near 
that white house." " Give it a shell." He fired, 
missed half a dozen times, but finally hit. It turned 
out to be the cart of a poor washer-woman, carrying 
the week's wash to her customers. 



230 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

A few days before the surrender bad news came 
thick and fast. A sortie in the direction of Mount 
Yalerien had been repulsed. Chanzy had been de- 
feated. All hope of aid from that quarter had van- 
ished, and but a few days' provisions remained. 
Will it be believed that even then Trochu " paltered 
in a double sense " with the suffering people ? He 
published a proclamation in which he said the " Gov- 
ernor of Paris would never surrender." The next 
day he resigned, and appointed no successor. When, 
three days later, the city surrendered there was no 
Governor of Paris. 

But even to the last moment there were people 
who had confidence in Trochu's proclamation. The 
Parisians are credulous, and readily believe what 
they wish to believe. Among the populace there 
was always a sort of half belief in the "Plan Tro- 
chu," which, as he often told us, when all else failed, 
was to save France. Tliis plan he kept mysteriously 
to himself, or confided it only to a few bosom-friends. 
But I had it from a source I thought entitled to be- 
lief, that Trochu confidently anticipated a miracle in 
his favor in return for his devotion. St. Genevieve 
was to appear and save Paris. It is almost impossi- 
ble to believe that, in the nineteenth century, and in 



VINOY TAKES COMMAND. 23 1 

that skeptical capital, a man of intelligence, cultiva- 
tion, and varied experience, could be found who be- 
lieved in a miraculous appearance of the saint ; but 
Trochu was a strange compound of learning, ability, 
weakness, and fanaticism, and I have little doubt 
that he confidently anticipated the personal inter- 
vention of St. Genevieve to save her beloved city. 

On the 24th of January, Yinoy took command. 
He suppressed the clubs, seized the violent press, 
and took other energetic measures. A mob attacked 
Mazas, and released the prisoners. They then tried 
the Hotel de Yille a second time ; but they had now 
a different commander to deal with, and they were 
beaten off with ease. Mr. Washburne and I hap- 
pened to be in the neighborhood of the Hotel de 
Yille, and saw something of this affair. We did not 
stay to the end, however, for we felt that it was 
not the proper place for us, accredited as we were 
to the Government the mob was attempting to over- 
throw. Had Yinoy or Ducrot been in command 
from the beginning, the result might have been 
different. There was no reason why the National 
Guard should not have made good soldiers ; but they 
needed a discipline of iron. They were permitted 
to choose their own officers. This of itself was fatal. 



232 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

In the beginning of our war in some of the States 
the company officers were elected by the men. But 
the men themselves were the first to see the folly of 
this course, and petitioned that their officers might 
be appointed by the Executive. Had the officers of 
the National Guard been appointed by the Govern- 
ment, and when they halted at the barrier and re- 
fused to go farther, had a battery been ordered up, 
and a dozen or so of them shot, '^jyour encourager les 
autres^^ as the French said of Admiral Byng, they 
might have given a very different account of them- 
selves in their combats with the Germans. 

On the 27th of January, with seven days' provis- 
ions only in Paris, with every man, woman, and 
child on the shortest possible allowance, the city sur- 
rendered. An armistice was agreed upon, which 
was not, however, to apply to the armies of the East 
operating toward Lyons. It is said that the French 
commander in that quarter w^as not notified that the 
armistice did not extend to him. He was attacked, 
caught napping, and defeated. 

If I recollect correctly, it was Bourbaki who was 
defeated in the East. Bourbaki is the type of the 
lean militaire of the French Empire. A dashing, 
gallant soldier, he had distinguished himself and 



BOURBAKI. 233 



gained his promotion by scaling the walls of an 
Arab town at tlie head of his troops, armed with a 
light riding -wlii J) only. But these were not the 
men then wanted at the head of the French ar- 
mies. When Bourbaki was defeated, and his army 
in retreat, making its disorderly way to Switzerland, 
and needing all its General's care and attention, he 
attempted to commit suicide. In the German serv- 
ice he wonld undoubtedly have been tried for deser- 
tion. In France every thing is pardoned to a man 
who acts under the influence of strong emotion ; and 
Bourbaki was never even blamed for leaving his 
army to its fate. 



234 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



CHAPTEK XIX. 

Election in France. — ^Terms of Peace. — Germans enter Paris. — Their 
Martial Appearance. — American Apartments occupied. — Wash- 
burne remonstrates. — Attitude of Parisians. — The Germans evac- 
uate Paris. — Victualing the City. — Aid from England and the 
United States. — Its Distribution. — Sisters of Charity. 

DuEESTG the armistice an election took place. The 
Assembly met at Bordeaux late in February, and 
steps were taken toward peace. All sorts of rumors 
were current as to the terms, and it was said that 
they were so severe that France must fight on at all 
hazards rather than accept them. Ten mlliards, it 
was rumored, were to be paid (two thousand millions 
of dollars). Alsace and Lorraine and a French col- 
ony were to be given up, and a number of French 
men-of-war made over to Germany. The prelimina- 
ries were finally agreed upon : five milliards were to 
be paid, and Alsace and Lorraine transferred. Ger- 
man troops were to occupy Mount Yalerien and to 
enter Paris, and hold a part of it until peace was 
definitively signed. The Crown Prince was reported 
to have been opposed to the troops entering the cap- 



GERMANS ENTER PARIS. 235 

ital, as humiliating to the French, and not a military 
necessity ; but he was overruled. 

On the 1st of March I was awakened by military 
music. I had not heard any for a long time, the 
French bands having been broken up. I hurried 
out, and found that the Germans were entering 
Paris. First came the traditional Uhlans. The safe- 
ty with which these troops rode in pairs through a 
great part of France was a curious feature of the 
war. They were followed by their supports. Then 
came a mixed band of about one thousand troops, 
representing all arms and the different German na- 
tionalities. They were sent as an advance-guard to 
secure and prepare the quarters assigned the troops 
by the maires. In the mean time, the Emperor w^as 
holding a review at Longchamps, on the very field 
where, three years and a half before, he had assisted 
at the review of sixty thousand French troops by the 
Emperor E^apoleon, and it w^as not until the after- 
noon that the main body, the Prussian Guard, the 
Saxons, and the Bavarians, marched into the city. 
They occupied the quarter of the Champs Elysees, 
extending as far as the Place de la Concorde — in 
all about one -eighth of Paris. 

This was a busy day for me. Mr. Washburno was 



236 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

overrun with concierges and servants complaining 
that the Prussians were occupying American apart- 
ments. I went to the mayor of the arrondissement. 
He said that he had quartered the Germans impar- 
tially upon all the householders; that the French 
law exem]3ted apartments of an annual value of less 
than one hundred dollars; that in his arrondisse- 
ment, as I knew, the apartments were either remark- 
ably good or remarkably poor ; that the good ones 
were occupied principally by foreigners, and that the 
poor ones were exempt. From the mayor I went 
to the German commander occupying the house of 
Queen Christine on the Champs Elysees, and was 
told at his head -quarters that they had nothing to 
say in the matter ; that they had requisitioned a cer- 
tain number of rooms from the French authorities, 
and that they must go where those authorities sent 
them, and had no right to go elsewhere ; that it was 
then too late to make any change that day, but that 
if Mr. Washburne would find them quarters else- 
where, they would cheerfully vacate all American 
apartments the next day. In the mean time Wash- 
burne had been to Jules Favre. Favre told him 
that there was every prospect that the terms of peace 
would be accepted by the Assembly at Bordeaux 



GERMAN OCCUPATION, . 237 

that evening, and that the Germans, in accordance 
with the treaty, would leave Paris the next day. 
They were accepted that evening; but Bismarck 
wished to give as many German troops as possible 
an opportunity to enter Paris, and so refused to ac- 
cept the telegraphic announcement of the acceptance 
of the treaty by the Assembly. The next day the 
written official notice arrived, and the day after Paris 
was evacuated. The Germans remained in Paris 
three days. They did no harm. I heard of nothing 
missing but a few blankets. By the terms of the 
treaty thirty thousand were to occupy Paris. It was 
rumored that the garrison was changed every night, 
and that ninety thousand entered in all. 

The attitude of the people of Paris toward the 
conquerors was, upon the whole, excellent. They 
staid away from the occupied quarter, and minded 
their own business. In this quarter the shops were 
all closed, except a few restaurants and cafes that the 
Germans insisted should be opened. Some of these 
cafes were afterward gutted by the mob, which was 
rather hard on the owners, as they had been compel- 
led to open them. But a mob is never just. Some 
few of the populace fraternized with the invaders, 
and w^ere to be seen talking amicably with them ; 



238 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

and some of the rougher element attempted to cre- 
ate a disturbance, but were soon overawed bj the 
great numbers and martial bearing of the conquerors. 
While only thirty thousand were in Paris, there can 
be little doubt that a hundred thousand were within 
a half -hour's march, ready to enter to the assistance 
of their comrades if needed. Indeed, I imagine that 
all the troops who passed in review before the Em- 
peror at Longchamps either occupied Paris, or were 
bivouacked in the Bois during the three days of the 
occupation. 

They had come in very quietly, and with military 
precautions against surprise. They went out with a 
flourish of trumpets. They had bivouacked in large 
numbers about the Arch, and their camp-fires lighted 
up the inscriptions on that magnificent monument 
recording the victories of French over German arms. 
It certainly is most creditable to the conquerors that 
they did the Arch no harm. Few nations would 
have been so magnanimous. The weather was per- 
fect, the night mild and balmy, the moon nearly full, 
and the beautiful German camp -songs, admirably 
sung, resounded in the stillness of the hour till ten 
o'clock struck, when perfect silence reigned in the 
camp. "When the Germans entered Paris, they 



VICTUALING PARIS. 239 

marched round the Arch ; when they went out they 
took down the chains which inclose it, and every 
regiment of infantry and cavalry, and every battery 
of artillery passed directly under it, drums beating, 
colors flying, and the men cheering as they passed. 
They were gloriously repaid for the trials of the 
campaign. 

Ten days passed after the surrender, and apparent- 
ly the French authorities had made no provision to 
revictual Paris. There was no beef, to speak of, in 
the city, and very little mutton. The bread remain- 
ed the same wretched dark stuff, one-third flour, two- 
thirds pease, beans, oats, rice, straw — in fact, any ref- 
use. Delicious white bread, fresh butter, and eggs 
were to be bought of the German soldiers just be- 
yond the barriers ; and any one who took the trouble, 
and had the means, could procure these luxuries at 
reasonable prices. The peasants sold them to the 
German soldiers, and they were permitted to resell 
them at a small profit. The first train of provisions 
to enter Paris was sent by the citizens of London, to 
their credit be it spoken. Will it be believed that 
considerable difliculty was experienced in finding per- 
sons willing to take the trouble to distribute this 
food gratuitously ? It was done to a very limited ex- 



i ■ ' 

240 CAA/F, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

tent at the mairies. The great dry-goods establish- 
ment of the Bon Marche distributed a portion ; but 
much was stored in the Halles de I'Abondance for 
want of distribution, and burned up when that estab- 
lishment was destroyed during the Commune. I re- 
member hearing a Chauvin of the Assembly at Yer- 
sailles pitch into the English for coming over after 
the Commune to visit Paris in her desolation. He 
was answered by Jules Favre, as happily as truly, 
that " the English, before they organized their 
trains of pleasure, had organized their trains of re- 
lief." 

In this connection let me state that more than two 
millions of dollars were sent from the United States. 
At least two cargoes of provisions arrived at Havre, 
our Government supplying the vessels. No one 
could be found to distribute the supplies. The 
French are so government-ridden that they are un- 
able to take the initiative in any thing for them- 
selves. I have seen a strong, bold man, a guide in 
the Pyrenees, stand wringing his hands and crying, 
while his house was on fire, waiting for the soldiers 
to come and save his furniture and put out the 
flames. One of the shiploads of provisions I speak 
of was sent to London, sold there, and the proceeds 



RELIEF FROM THE UNITED STATES. 241 

distributed to the poor of France. Part of tlie relief 
sent was distributed through the 'Government, but 
experience showed this method to be slow — there was 
too much red-tape about it. The funds were finally 
placed in the hands of American ladies and gentle- 
men residing at Paris and Versailles, whose knowl- 
edge of France and acquaintance with French people 
gave them the means of making a judicious distribu- 
tion. A part was expended by a committee of ladies, 
of which Madame MacMahon was the President; 
something was placed at the disposal of the Countess 
of Paris, out of regard for her husband, who had 
served in our army during the war ; and a very large 
portion was distributed through the Sisters of Char- 
ity. Nothing could be more judicious, and at the 
same time more thoroughly business-like, than the 
manner in which these admirable women disposed 
of the money intrusted to them, rendering a voucher 
for every franc they expended. One felt that every 
penny in their hands had been placed wdiere it was 
most needed, and would do most good. 

Mr. Washburne left Paris early in February for 
Brussels, where his family were residing, and where, 
by -the -way, a very large number of our Parisian 
Americans had taken refuge. But he came back in 

11 



242 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

a week, feeling quite poorly. He had been so over- 
run with visitors making inquiries or asking favors, 
that he had had no rest, and so returned to the lately 
beleaguered city for a little quiet. I remained until 
the Germans had made their triumphal entry, and 
their more triumphal departure, and then got leave 
and went to London to join my family. 



THE COMMUNE. 243 



CHAPTER XX. 

The Commune. — Murder of French Generals. — The National Guard of 
Order. — It disbands. — The Reasons. — Flight of the Government to 
Versailles. — Thiers. — Attempts to reorganize National Guard. — An 
American arrested by Commune. — Legation intervenes. — His Dis- 
charge. — His Treatment. — Reign of King Mob. — '•'• Demonstration.^ 
Pacifiquesy — Absurd Decrees of the Commune. — Destruction of the 
Vendorae Column. 

But it lias rarely been my lot, in the course of my 
official life, to enjoy an uninterrupted leave of ab- 
sence. The present was no exception. I was scarce- 
ly fairly installed in England, and lighting " my bat- 
tles o'er again," and showing '' how fields were " lost, 
when there came a telegram from Mr. "Washburne 
telling me that there were disturbances in Paris, and 
that I must return immediately. Some of the Na- 
tional Guard of the Belleville and Montmartre quar- 
ters had taken advantage of the confusion reigning 
immediately after the surrender, and seized several 
field-guns and mitrailleuses, and carried them off to 
their fastnesses on Montmartre. They now refused 
to surrender them ; and when the Government at- 



244 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

tempted to take tliem, the troops fraternized with 
the mob, and deserted their generals, Lecompte and 
Thomas, whom the Communists forthwith shot. It 
was said that Count Bismarck had urged the disarm- 
ing of the National Guard at the time of the sur- 
render. Trochu's Government had refused. They 
must have bitterly regretted it afterward. 

On my return I entered Paris by the Gare St. 
Lazare. That usually peaceful temple of traffic was 
thronged by Gardes Nationaixx — "The ^N'ational 
Guard of Order," they called themselves, or were 
called, to distinguish them from the Communists. 
These gentlemen appeared to be enjoying them- 
selves. They were comfortably housed in the build- 
ing, and lounged and chatted there, not without fre- 
quent visits to the neighboring cafes. I found that 
they held the Grand Hotel, and the new Opera- 
house, both strong positions, and within easy sup- 
porting distance of each other. They also held the 
Bourse, the Bank of France, the "Finances," and 
many other " coignes of vantage." But " coignes of 
vantage " are of very little use when the heart to de- 
fend them is lacking. In a very few days these 
men, outnumbering the Communists two or three to 
one, backed by the power of the Government and 



MY BARBER. 245 



the wealth of Paris, and by the moral support of the 
Germans and of the civilized world, had disband- 
ed, taken refuge in flight, and left their families, and 
their property, and their beautiful city to the tender 
mercies of the mob. 

It was a matter of the utmost astonishment to me, 
and to every one with whom I conversed, that the 
ISTational Guard of Order should have behaved as 
they did. I never understood it till I talked with 
my barber just after his battalion had disbanded, and 
before he had escaped to London. They got tired 
of sleeping away from tlieir families, getting their 
meals irregularly, and having to pay restaurant- 
prices for them. They were in a state of disgust, 
too, with the Government, who refused to pass an 
act to relieve them from their rents accrued during 
the siege. My barber was an excellent representa- 
tive of his class, the jpetite hoiirgeoisie j a well-to-do 
man, employing two apprentices, making a good 
livelihood, and laying by something for a dot for his 
children — economical, intelligent, sober. He belong- 
ed to the most respectable battalion in the city, that 
of the quarter of the '' Finances." I expressed my 
surprise at their disbanding. He said that the Gov- 
ernment would do nothing for them, so they would 



246 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

do nothing for the Government : it might put down 
the emeute itself. So they abandoned their proper- 
ty and their homes and their idolized Paris, shut np 
their shops, and ran away. 

The relations between the Government and the 
governed in France are difficult for an American to 
understand. In the United States and in England 
the Government is our government, its interests are 
our interests, and we stand by and defend it, not 
only because it is our duty to do so, but because it is 
ours. This feeling does not exist in France among 
the masses, the petit commerce and the peasantry. 
They look upon the Government as a foreign body 
which has somehow or other — it matters very little 
how — got possession of power. As long as it pre- 
serves order, prevents crime, insures prosperity, and 
gratifies vanity by foreign conquests, it is firmly 
seated; but the moment it ceases to be able to do 
all this, let it go, and try another. 

It is a strange notion of the duties of a Govern- 
ment that it must insure prosperity ; but it prevails 
very generally among the masses in France, and is 
not unknown among the uneducated classes in other 
countries. The theory of the Long Island fisher- 
man is more generally acted upon than is acknowl- 



FLIGHT OF THE GOVERNMENT. 247 

"He knew Governor Dix, and lie liked 
Governor Dix, but lie hadn't averaged an eel to a 
pot all Slimmer; and he thought he would try a 
new governor." 

The conduct of the Government, or, rather, that 
of M. Thiers — for at that time Thiers was the Gov- 
ernment, and he might have said with perfect truth, 
" Letat c'est moi " — has been much and harshly criti- 
cised. Whether this criticism is just or not, depends 
upon the loyalty or disloyalty of the troops. If they 
were true to their colors and ready to fight the mob, 
as they afterward did, there never was a more cow- 
ardly and disgraceful surrender than the retreat to 
Yersailles, as unwise and unmilitary as it was cow- 
ardly, for it discouraged the respectable citizens, and 
abandoned to the mob all the advantages of position, 
immense war material, and the unbounded wealth 
of the capital. It was ]3roceeding upon Artemus 
"Ward's military plan. Artemus said that if he were 
in a city with fifty thousand men, besieged by an 
enemy with fifty thousand men, he would open the 
gates and march out, and let them march in, and then 
besiege them. Artemus and M. Thiers appear to 
have studied in the same military school. But if, as 
Thiers alleged, the army could not be relied upon, 



248 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

but were ready to raise the butts of their muskets " en 
air^'' and fraternize with the Communists, then there 
never was a wiser movement : it was truly a " mas- 
terly retreat." Had what Thiers apprehended hap- 
pened, had the troops fraternized with the mob, a 
movement which was only an insurrection — a bloody 
one, it is true, but confined to one city — would have 
spread over France, and there would have been a 
repetition, with aggravation, of all the horrors of the 
first Revolution. 

Before the ]N"ational Guard of Order disbanded, 
several well-intentioned efforts were made by officers 
of rank to effect an organization among the citizens 
against the insurgents. Admiral de Saissy either 
volunteered, or was sent by the Government, to take 
command. He made his head-quarters at the Grand 
Hotel, within a stone's-throw of the Communists in- 
trenched in the Place Yendome. Here they were 
isolated, far from their supports at Belleville and 
Montmartre. Why the Admiral did not place a bat- 
tery in position in the Tuileries Gardens, command- 
ing the Place Yendome by the Eue Castiglione, or 
why he did not simpl^^ starve the Communists out, I 
never knew : probably he could not depend upon his 
men. I am confirmed in this belief by a circum- 



ARREST OF AN AMERICAN. 249 

stance which happened within my own observation. 
Two or three French gentlemen called at the Lega- 
tion one morning, to say that a young American 
friend, a Mr. Delpit, of New Orleans, had been ar- 
rested by the Communists, and was then a prisoner 
in the Place Yendome, and wonld probably be drag- 
ged that day before a Communist court-martial, con- 
demned, and shot. Mr. Washburne was at Yersailles. 
I immediately sent his private secretary, an attache 
of the Legation, furnished with all the necessary 
documents, to his relief. In a very short time Mr. 
M'Kean returned, after a most successful mission. 
He had seen Delpit, he had seen the insurgent author- 
ities, and they had promised to discharge their pris- 
oner that very day. They did so. The next day he 
came up to thank us for our prompt intervention in 
his behalf, which had undoubtedly saved his life. I 
naturally asked him how he happened to be arrested. 
He said that he had gone to see Admiral de Saissy, 
whom he knew, at the Grand Hotel; tliat the Ad- 
miral was very anxious to send a dispatch to a distant 
part of the city ; that the Admiral's aid was ready 
to start, but that there appeared to be a very unani- 
mous indisposition on the part of the officers of the 
National Guard to accompany him ; that thereupon 

11^ 



2 50 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

he volunteered. The Admiral jumped at the offer, 
and said, ^^You will go, I know; yoic are an Ameri- 
can; you are not afraid." A French commander 
must have been very much provoked by the conduct 
of the officers about him to use such language in 
their presence. Delpit and the aid started, but had 
gone but a little way, when they were surrounded 
by a squad of the insurgents, who ordered them to 
halt. Delpit drew his revolver, and threatened to 
shoot, while he told his companion to run. The aid 
escaped. The insurgents leveled their pieces, and 
were about to fire, when Delpit, seeing that his com- 
panion had escaped, concluded that discretion w^as 
the better part of valor, and surrendered. They dis- 
armed him, treating him very roughly, and one of 
them — a negro — spat in his face. They shut him up 
in a cellar in the Place Yendome, and it was likely 
to go hard with him, when M'Kean appeared upon 
the scene. Delpit told me that when they found 
that he was cared for by the Legation, their conduct 
changed marvelously. They treated him with the 
greatest respect, and the colored brother who had 
spit in his face was particularly marked in his at- 
tentions. Delpit has since distinguished himself as 
a poet. His work on the siege of Paris was crowned 



KING MOB. 251 



by the Academy, and he is the author of a success- 
ful play, which means much in France. 

But Admiral de Saissy had had enough of it. He 
gave it up, and went back to Versailles. The ]^a- 
tional Guard of Order disbanded, and King Mob 
reigned triumphant. 

At first King Mob was a good-natured monarch. 
He collected a lot of pitch-pine torches, and lighted 
them on top of the Yendome Column. The effect 
was good. He made bonfires, fired off guns, organ- 
ized processions, made speeches ; in fact, behaved like 
any first-class American city on the Fourth of July. 
This did not last long, however. The tiger soon 
showed his claws. The party of order, having given 
up their arms and disbanded, proceeded to organize 
what they called a '^demonstration jpacifique^'' de- 
signed to produce a moral effect upon a horde of 
savages. They paraded the streets in large numbers 
unarmed. The first day's procession was rather a 
success. It was a novelty, and took. The second 
day's was not so successful. They marched up the 
Kue de la Paix, intending, in the grandeur of their 
moral strength, to pass straight through the Place 
Yendome, the tiger's lair. The barricades were to 
disappear at their approach, the insurgents were to 



252 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

throw themselves into their arms, and there was to 
be one huge kiss of peace and reconciliation. Un- 
fortunately, things did not turn out as set down in 
the bills. The barriers did not melt away, and the 
insurgents refused to kiss and make friends. On the 
contrary, they opened fire on the procession, and 
several of its numbers were killed. It was a well- 
meant effort, but Quixotic to the last degree. 

And now the tiger had tasted blood, and his appe- 
tite grew by what it fed on. But his rage increased 
by degrees, advancing from one atrocity to another, 
till it culminated in the slaughter of the hostages. 

There was a mixture of the ridiculous with the 
infamous in the early acts of the Commune. Its 
members were very numerous ; so, for working pur- 
poses they appointed a " Committee of Public Safe- 
ty," which very soon belied its name. These men 
appointed the ministers. To call a man "Minister 
of War" was not democratic, so they called him ''ci-- 
toyen delegue au Ministere de la GuerreP The title 
of " General " they found inconsistent with the sim- 
plicity of republican institutions, and so suppressed 
it. "Colonel" could pass muster, but "General" 
was too aristocratic for their dainty ears. Then they 
found that, like other mere mortals, they must live 



DECREES OF COMMUNE, 253 

and provide for their families. It was so mucli eas- 
ier to pillage a sliop than to work ! The shop-keeper 
should be proud to contribute to the well-being of 
the brave defenders of the Republic! Then they 
published a decree seizing all the workshops, that 
they might be occupied by Communist w^orkmen on 
the co-operative system. A jury was to be appoint- 
ed — by the Commune, of course — to assess the value 
of the property, and compensation was to be made 
to the owner. As a practical measure, this was not 
a success. The workmen found it pleasanter to play 
soldier, and to take what they wanted, than to w^ork 
even on the co-operative system. So the workshops 
generally remained in the hands of their owners. 
I^ext they commenced the work of demolition, and 
almost equaled the great Haussmann in this respect. 
They pulled down the house of M. Thiers (the As- 
sembly has since built him a better one) ; and they 
passed decrees to tear down the houses of Jules Fa- 
vre and other members of the Government, and con- 
fiscate their property. Happily the patriots to whom 
the execution of these decrees was intrusted were 
not perfectly immaculate; they could generally he 
Been. In this way much less irreparable injury was 
done than might have been expected. 



254 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

One of their follies was the destruction of the 
Colonne Yendome. An eminent artist — Courbet — 
who was a member of the Commune, said that it 
offended his artistic taste. Others of this band of 
brothers said that it perpetuated the victory of war 
over peace ; that it kept alive a feeling of triumph 
in the conquerors and revenge in the conquered; 
that the peoples should be brothers, etc., etc. So 
they pulled it down ; and the present Government 
forthwith rebuilt it, and the courts have condemned 
M. Courbet to pay the expense. 

When the Column was pulled down, all the shop- 
windows within half a mile were pasted over with 
strips of paper to prevent their being broken by 
the shock. It fell, and people two hundred yards 
off did not know that any thing unusual had hap- 
pened. It was a question much discussed how far 
the prostrate Column would reach. Its length was 
generally much overestimated. It was thought that 
it w^ould extend at least one hundred feet into the 
Eue de la Paris. It did not enter the street, nor 
even cross the Place Yendome. The bronze plates 
were nearly all saved. Some few were disposed of 
by the Communist soldiers. One was sold by a 
sailor to a lady for five hundred francs. He after- 



COLONNE VEND O ME. 255 

ward denounced her to the Government, and got five 
hundred francs more for doing so. A profitable 
transaction ! One was sold to an American, and 
made the voyage to New York, where it was found 
by the French Consul, reclaimed, and returned to 
Paris. 



256 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

Diplomatic Corps moves to Versailles. — Journey there and back. — 
Life at Versailles. — German Princes. — Battle at Clamart. — Unbur- 
ied Insurgents. — Bitterness of Class Hatred.— Its Probable Causes. 
— United States Post-office at Versailles. — The Archbishop of Par- 
is. — Attempts to save his Life. — Washburne's Kindness to him. 
— Blanqui. — Archbishop murdered. — Ultramontanism. — Bombard- 
ment by Government. — My Apartment struck. — Capricious Effects 
of Shells.— Injury to Arch of Triumph. — Bass-reliefs of Peace and 
War. 

As soon as the Government had moved to Yer- 
sailles, the diplomatic corps followed. Mr. Wash- 
burne hired a large room in the Eue de Mademoiselle 
(the sister of Louis XI Y. — all Yersailles bears the 
impress of the reign of that monarch). This room 
had to do for office, bedroom, and sitting-room ; for 
Yersailles was crowded, and we were lucky to get 
any thing so comfortable. As we had far more to 
do at Paris than at Yersailles, and Paris was then, as 
always, the seat of attraction, Mr. Washburne spent 
four days of the week in that city, and three at Yer- 
sailles, and I alternated with him. We had passes 
from both sides. I made the trip twice a week, and 



ROUTE TO VERSAILLES. 257 

sometimes under considerable difficulties. I have 
traveled more than thirty miles to reach Paris from 
Yersailles, a distance of nine miles, partly in a dili- 
gence, partly on foot, partly in flat - boats to cross 
the Seine where the French had most unnecessarily 
blown up their own beautiful bridges, and partly by 
rail. I suppose that I am better acquainted with the 
westerly environs of Paris than any foreigner but a 
medical student. Some of the drives in the months 
of April and May, especially one by Sceaux and 
Fontaine-les-Roses, and up the valley of the Bievre, 
are very lovely. 

But after a while we had a regular organized line 
by St. Denis. The Germans occupied this town, 
and insisted upon keeping open the railroad into 
Paris, the Chemin de Fer du ^N'ord. They said that 
under the treaty they had a right to draw certain 
supplies from France, and that Paris was the most 
convenient place to draw them from, and from Paris 
they meant to draw them ; and that if the Commu- 
nists did not keep the Porte St. Denis open, they 
would. The Commune always had a wholesome 
fear of the Germans ; this was all that restrained 
them from even greater outrages than they perpetra- 
ted ; and they hated the Germans less than they did 



258 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

their own countrymen at Yersailles. In going to 
Versailles we took the train to St. Denis ; there we 
hired a carriage, or took the public conveyance, and 
so drove to our destination, a trip of about three 
hours in all : or we drove out by the Porte St. De- 
nis, and so all the way to Yersailles. This was gen- 
erally my route, for a number of American and 
French friends asked me to bring their horses and 
carriages from the ill-fated city. If the Communist 
officers at the gates were close observers, they must 
have thought that I was the owner of one of the 
largest and best-appointed stables in Paris. 

There was very little to do at Yersailles, and per- 
haps less to eat. The Government was there, and 
the Assembly, and the Corps Diplomatique, and 
consequently the crowd of people who had business 
with these bodies, thronged to that city. At the 
restaurants it was a struggle to get any thing; and 
when you got it, it was not precisely in the Cafe 
Anglais style. I found two or three pleasant Amer- 
ican families who had wintered here very quietly 
during the German occupation. They had had no 
occasion to complain of their treatment. At the 
Hotel de France I found Dr. Hosmer, the intelligent 
and cultivated principal correspondent of the Her- 



BATTLE AT CLAM ART. 259 

aid. That enterj)rising journal had its staff of cou- 
riers, who were always at our service during those 
days of irregular postal communication. At the Ho- 
tel des Reservoirs several German princes, officers of 
the army, were lodged — intelligent, agreeable, culti- 
vated gentlemen. They were only too glad to have 
the pleasure of the society of American ladies, for 
of course they could not visit the French; and no 
class of men long for and appreciate ladies' society 
like educated officers on campaign in an enemy's 
country. They eagerly accepted invitations to dine 
with my friends for a double reason, the pleasure 
of their society, and that of a good dinner; for the 
French cook never could manage, though of course 
he did his best, to cook a good dinner for the Ger- 
mans, and the landlord was always just out of that 
favorite brand of Champagne. 

The day after my first arrival at Yersailles I made 
an excursion to the battle-field at Clamart, near 
Meudon. The Communists had been defeated there 
the day before. I had " assisted " at the battle from 
the Paris side. In attempting to reach Yersailles in 
that direction, I found myself in the midst of the 
insurgents, and under the fire of the troops. The 
manner in which the insuro-ents behaved had not 



26o CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

given me a very exalted idea of tlieir soldierly qual- 
ities. It was all confusion, talking, drinking, and 
panic. A mob of them surged up to the gate, and 
demanded admission. It was refused, and they were 
ordered back to their regiments. But the crowd in- 
creased, and became more clamorous. The princi- 
ples of fraternity forbade the guard to keep their 
brethren out in the cold, where the naughty Yersail- 
lais might pounce upon them; so the draw -bridge 
fell, the gates opened, and the runaways entered. 

When I visited the battle-field, many of the dead 
still lay unburied, while the soldiers lounged about 
with their hands in those everlasting pockets, and 
looking with the most perfect indifference upon 
their dead countrymen. The class hatred which 
exists in France is something we have no idea of, 
and I trust that we never shall. It is bitter, relent- 
less, and cruel ; and is, no doubt, a sad legacy of the 
bloody Eevolution of 1789, and of the centuries of 
oppression which preceded it. At the beginning of 
the war the peasants in one of the villages not far 
from Paris thrust a young nobleman into a ditch, 
and there burned him to death with the stubble 
from the fields. They had nothing particular against 
him, except that he was a nobleman. In Paris the 



POST- OFFICE. 261 



mob threw the gendarmes, when they caught them, 
into the Seine, and w^hen they attempted to struggle 
out upon the banks hacked off their hands. On the 
battle-field I have referred to, the freres chretiens, a 
most devoted and excellent body of men, were mov- 
ing about on their errands of mercy. Seeing these 
unburied bodies, they went to the commanding offi- 
cer, and begged him to detail a j)arty to bury them. 
He did it to oblige them. As the soldiers lifted one 
of the dead, a young American who accompanied me 
said, " Why, he hasn't a bad face after all !" At once 
the soldiers looked at him with suspicion, the officer 
asked him who he was, and, upon being told, advised 
him not to express any such sentiments again. 

Our principal occupation at Versailles was keeping 
a post-office for Americans in Paris. M. Rampont, 
the directeur des pastes, had escaped, with all his 
staff, and established the office at Yersailles. The 
archives of the bureau of the Avenue Josephine 
were placed in our Legation. The Communists were 
angry enough to find themselves cut off from all 
postal communication w^ith the departments. It di- 
minished their chances of success. The only means 
Americans had of communicating with their friends 
in Paris was to send their letters to the care of the 



2 62 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

Legation at Yersailles. We have received as many 
as fifty in one day. Two or three times a week we 
took or sent them to Paris. They were there mailed 
by the Legation, and distributed by the rebel post- 
ofiice. It cost Uncle Samuel a penny or two, but 
he and his representatives at Washington did not 
grumble. 

The only episode of interest that occurred at Yer- 
sailles was our attempt to save the life of the Arch- 
bishop of Paris. He had been arrested by the Com- 
mune, and held as a hostage for the release of some 
of their own rag, tag, and bobtail. One day the 
Pope's ISTuncio called to see Mr. Washburne. He 
was in Paris. The Nonce thereupon explained his 
business to me, and afterward sent two canons of the 
Metropolitan Church to see me. They came to beg 
Mr. Washburne to do all in his power to save the life 
of the Archbishop, which they considered to be in im- 
minent danger. They had already tried one or more 
European embassies, but were met with the answer 
that they could have nothing to do with the Com- 
mune. They handed me their papers, and I went at 
once to Paris. Mr. Washburne took up the matter 
with his accustomed energy and kindliness. He got 
permission to see the prisoner. He took him books 



THE ARCHBISHOP. 263 

and newspapers and old wine. He did all in his 
power to negotiate an exchange with Blanqui, a vet- 
eran agitator held by the Government. The Com- 
mune consented, but the Versailles authorities would 
not. M. Thiers consulted his ministers and his coun- 
cil of deputies. They were unanimously of opinion 
that they could hold no dealings with the Commune. 
It was then proposed to let Blanqui escape, and that 
thereupon the Archbishop should escape too, and 
that there need be no negotiations whatever. This 
M. Thiers declined. 

Matters were complicated by the conduct of the 
Yicar- general Lagarde. He had been a prisoner 
with the Archbishop, and had been released for the 
purpose of bringing letters to Yersailles with a view 
to negotiate the proposed exchange, and on condi- 
tion that he should return. Once safely at Yer- 
sailles, he declined to go back. His pretext was that 
M. Thiers's letter in reply to the Archbishop's was 
sealed, and that he could not carry back a sealed let- 
ter in reply to one unsealed. I remember the sad 
and resigned, but not bitter tone, in which the Arch- 
bishop wrote of this desertion, and the exceedingly 
cautious terms in which the Pope's JSTuncio referred 
to it. 



264 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

But Mr. Washburne's untiring efforts were in vain. 
He had to contend with the vis inertia of French 
bureaucracy, and he who can move this mass must 
be ten times a Hercules. 

The Archbishop was murdered; but Blanqui, 
whom the French Government held with so relent- 
less a grip, was condemned to a year or two's im- 
prisonment only. 

I thought at that time, and think still, that no de- 
termined effort was made to save the Archbishop's 
life, except by two or three canons of his Church, 
and by the Minister of the United States. The 
French authorities certainly were lukewarm in the 
matter. The Archbishop was a Galilean, a liberal 
Catholic, notably so. Had he been an Ultramontane, 
I think tliat the extreme Eight of the Assembly — 
the Legitimists — would have so exerted themselves 
that his life would have been saved. M. Thiers oc- 
cupied a difficult position. He was suspected by the 
Legitimists of coquetting with the radicals, and of 
having no serious intention of putting down the in- 
surrection. The suspicion was, of course, unfound- 
ed; but it may have prevented him from entering 
upon those informal negotiations which would prob- 
ably have resulted in the release of the prisoner. 



FORTIFICATIONS OF PARIS. 265 

I once expressed these views to a laclj in Paris, 
herself a liberal Catholic. She would not admit 
them to be true. Some weeks later, I met her again, 
and she told me that she believed that I was right ; 
that she had heard such sentiments expressed by Le- 
gitimist ladies, that she was satisfied that there was 
an influential, if not a large, class of Ultramontanes, to 
whom the death of the Archbishop was not unwelcome. 
He has been succeeded by a noted Ultramontane. 

Meantime the army was being rapidly reorganized. 
The Imj)erial Guard, and other corjps cVSlite, had 
returned from Germany, where they had been pris- 
oners of war. Marshal MacMahon took command. 
Why M. Thiers did not then assault the city, and 
carry it, as he undoubtedly could have done, was a 
matter of surprise to every one, and especially to 
those whose lives and property lay at the mercies of 
the Commune. But Thiers had built the fortifica- 
tions of Paris. He looked upon them with a pater- 
nal eye. To him they were not like other men's 
fortifications. They were impregnable to ordinary 
assault, and could only be taken by regular ap- 
proaches. How I wished that Guizot had built 
them ! We might have been saved a month of dan- 
ger, loss, and intense anxiety. 

12 



2 66 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

On my weekly visit to Paris I had a better oppor- 
tunity to observe the progress of events than if I 
had staid there without interruption, while my resi- 
dence of three days gave me ample occasion to ap- 
preciate the full pleasures of the bombardment. It 
must always be a mystery why the French bombard- 
ed so persistently the quarter of the Arch of Tri- 
umph — the West End of Paris — the quarter where 
nine out of ten of the inhabitants were known friends 
of the Government. They had their regular hours 
for this divertissement, for so they seemed to regard 
it. They took a turn at it before breakfast, to give 
them an appetite ; and at five o'clock in the morn- 
ing I was waked by the shells from Mont Yalerien 
bursting and crashing in the Place de I'Etoile. 
About noon they went at it again, and when I went 
home to breakfast (anglice lunch), I had to dodge 
round comers, and take refuge behind stone col- 
umns. Then, just before sunset, they always favored 
us with an evening gun, for good-night. The days, 
too, were so confoundedly long at that season of the 
year — April and May — and the weather provok- 
ingly fine. How I longed for a delicious London 
fog! 

I remember one day, as I dodged behind a stone 



BOMBARDMENT. 267 



jDillar in the Rue de Presbourg to avoid a coming 
shell, the concierge called me in. I went into his 
loge^ but declined to go into the cellar, where his wife 
and children had taken refuge. He had two loges^ 
and I strongly advised him to move into the unoccu- 
pied one as the safer of the two, for I had observed 
that the shells generally passed easily enough through 
one stone wall, but were arrested by a second. He 
took my advice. The next day a shell from one of 
their evening guns fell into the window of the loge 
he had left, passed through the floor into the cellar, 
and there exploded, and tore every thing to pieces. 

My own apartment was struck eight times by 
fragments of shells. Fortunately but one exploded 
in the house, and that two stories above me. It 
shattered the room into which it fell fearfully, but, 
strange to say, did no damage in the adjoining 
rooms. Happily the apartment was unoccupied. 
The tenants, a few days before, had taken advantage 
of a law of the Commune which released all tenants 
from their rent if they found it inconvenient to pay 
it, and had decamped, furniture and all. 

Mr. Washburne advised me to change my resi- 
dence, as it was not safe. But I felt that the dig- 
nity of the great American ^^eople would not permit 



268 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

even one of its subordinate representatives to leave 
the building while a Frenchman remained in it. 
Mr. Washburne's practice, too, was not in accordance 
with his precepts. If we heard of any part of Paris 
where shells were likely to burst and bullets to whis- 
tle, Washburne was sure to have important business 
in that direction. 

I was not in my house when the shell exploded. 
I generally came home to dinner after dark. If 
there is any thing thoroughly disagreeable, it is to 
have shells tumbling and bursting about you when 
you are at dinner. It is bad enough at breakfast, 
but the dinner- hour should be sacred from vulgar 
intrusion. 

I recollect one day after my midday breakfast, as 
I left my house, I saw a knot of men standing on the 
corner of the Avenue de I'lmperatrice and the Kue 
de Presbourg; I thought that I would go and see 
what was up. Mont Yalerien was blazing away at 
a great rate. As I joined the group, one of them 
said, " They'll fire at us soon, seeing half a dozen peo- 
ple here." He had hardly said so, when there was 
a flash, and a puif of smoke, and in a minute we 
heard the huge shell hurtling through the air. It 
missed us, of course, and fell in the Place, and ex- 



BOMBARDMENT. 269 



ploded. All these men were friends of the Govern- 
ment, and thej were looking to Mont Yalerien for 
help, longing for the troops to come in. This was 
the protection the Government gave its friends, 
"the protection which the vulture gives the lamb, 
covering and devouring it." 

About once a week I was called in bj some neigh- 
boring concierge to note the damage done by shells 
in apartments belonging to Americans. Shells are 
strangely capricious. One end of IS'o. 8 Rue de 
Presbourg, opposite my own residence, was nearly 
torn to pieces; the other end was untouched. At 
No. 12, shell after shell penetrated the kitchen d-e- 
partments, while the salons were uninjured. I was 
called to see the damage done to the premier of 
No. 8, a beautiful apartment belonging to a New 
York lady. A shell had entered the salon and ex- 
ploded. I have never seen more thorough destruc- 
tion. The mirrors were shattered; the floors and 
ceilings rent and gaping ; sofas, chairs, and tables up- 
set and broken. In the midst of all this destruction 
stood a little table with a lady's work-basket upon it, 
the needle in the work, the thimble and scissors on 
the table, as if she had left them ^nq minutes before 
— the only objects unhurt in the room. It was a 



2 70 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

touching souvenir of peaceful domestic life in the 
midst of the worst ravages of war. 

Mr. Washburne and Lord Lyons complained to 
Jules Favre of this persistent bombardment, for the 
property destroyed and the lives endangered were 
largely American and English. He replied that it 
was " bad shooting," but he smiled as he said so, and 
evidently did not believe it himself. It was sheer 
wantonness, that irrepressible desire of artillery-men, 
of which I have before spoken, to hit something — 
an enemy if possible, a friend if no enemy offers. 

It was singular that while so many shells fell in 
the immediate neighborhood of the Arch of Triumph, 
so little serious injury was done to it. I remarked a 
curious circumstance in this connection. The bass- 
reliefs on the arch facing the Avenue de la Grande 
Armee are Peace and War — on the right, as you 
face the Arch, War ; on the left, Peace. War was 
very much injured ; Peace was scarcely touched. 



REIGN OF TERROR. 271 



CHAPTEE XXII. 

Reign of Terror. — Family Quarrels. — The Alsacians, etc., claim Ger- 
man Nationality. — They leave Paris on our Passes. — Prisoners of 
Commune. — Priests and Nuns. — Fragments of Shells. — "Articles 
de Paris." — Fearful Bombardment of " Point du Jour." — Arrest of 
Cluseret. — Commune Proclamations. — Capture of Paris. — Troops 
enter by Undefended Gate. — Their Slow Advance. — Fight at the 
Tuileries Gardens. — Communist Women. — Capture of Barricades. — 
Cruelties of the Troops. — " Petroleuses." — Absurd Stories about 
them. — Public Buildings fired. — Destruction of Tuileries, etc., etc. 
— Narrow Escape of Louvre. — Treatment of Communist Prisoners. 
— Presents from Emperor of Germany. 

As time passed, the puerilities and atrocities of 
the Commune kept equal pace. They had taken pos- 
session of the public buildings and raised the red 
flag upon them, suppressing the tricolor. They now 
passed a decree requiring every man to be provided 
with a carte dHdentite ; this, they said, was to pro- 
tect them against Government spies. They estab- 
lished a bureau of denunciation, where any man who 
had a grudge against his neighbor had simply to de- 
nounce him as a Yersailles sym]3athizer, and he was 
arrested. They closed the churches, or turned them 



2 72 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

into clubs. Tliej arrested the priests; they shut 
up some of the convents, and imprisoned the nuns. 
They confiscated the gold and silver church plate, 
and turned it into coin. It was emphatically a. 
"Eeign of Terror." It was estimated that within 
a month after the outbreak of the Commune three 
hundred thousand people left Paris. 

In the clubs they denounced the Legation. They 
said that Mr. Washburne was about to call in the 
Germans at the request of the diplomatic corps. 
They proposed to hang him, and to banish the rest 
of us. In point of fact, I believe that Mr. Wash- 
burne could have called in the German army at any 
time. He had only to report to General Manteuffel 
that the lives of the Germans in Paris were in dan- 
ger, and that he found himself unable to protect 
them, and Manteuffel would have occupied Paris at 
once. But Mr. Washburne never entertained an 
idea of doing this. 

Then the Commune began to quarrel among 
themselves. The Happy Family was at variance. 
Strange as it may appear, at the beginning of the 
affair, there were many earnest, honest fanatics in 
Paris who joined the movement. The first demands 
of the Commune under the influence of these men 



ALSACIANS. 273 



were not unreasonable, in American eyes. Tliey 
asked that they might elect their own prefect, and 
that Paris should not be garrisoned by Government 
soldiers. Bat events soon outstripped these men; 
and as they found the city given over to organized 
pillage — the Committee of Public Safety meeting in 
secret, instead of in the light of open day, as they had 
promised, and the model republic of which they had 
dreamed as much a chimera as ever — they withdrew 
from the Government. Over twenty of them with- 
drew in a body, and published their reasons for do- 
ing so. But the scoundrels who now directed the 
movement ''cared for none of these things." They 
had used these poor enthusiasts while it suited their 
purpose; now they threw them overboard, and re- 
plied to their manifesto by removing the Committee 
of Public Safety as too mild, afflicted with scruples, 
and appointing one of a bloodier type, one of its 
members a murderer. 

During all this time the Legation was beset from 
morning till night. The Alsacians and Lorrains re- 
siding in Paris, whom the treaty had made Ger- 
mans, but who were nevertheless permitted to choose 
their nationality, had fully intended to ojpter for 
the French, and refused with indignation a German 
12* 



2 74 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

nationality. But when they found that to remain 
French condemned them to the JS^ational Guard, 
while to become German enabled them to leave Par- 
is, and return to their homes, they came in shoals to 
the Legation to ask for German passports. It was 
a renewal of the days before the siege, the days of 
the German expulsion. Much of Mr. Washburne's 
time was taken up in visiting German prisoners, and 
procuring their discharge, and sometimes that of 
French priests and nuns. To procure the release of 
Germans was no very difficult task, for the Com- 
mune, as I have said, had a wholesome fear of the 
Teuton, and " Cims Germanicus sum " was an open- 
sesame to Communist prison-doors. But to release 
the poor French nuns was a more difficult task. Mr. 
Washburne effected it in many instances ; but it re- 
quired all his energy and decision. 

And here I must remark how much better and 
more humane it was to do as Mr. "Washburne did — 
to hold such communication with the officials of the 
Commune as was absolutely necessary, and so save 
human life, and mitigate human suffering — than to 
sit with folded arms, and say, " Really, I can have 
nothing to do with those people," and so let fellow- 
creatures suffer and perish. 



ECLATS D'OBUS. 275 



Where there is a will, there is generally a way. 
Mr. Washbiirne was able to assist and protect indi- 
rectly many persons whom he could not claim as 
American citizens or German subjects. We could 
not give a United States passport to a Frenchman, 
but we could make him a bearer of dispatches, give 
him a courier's pass, and so get him safely out of 
Paris. Colonel Bonaparte escaped in this w^ay. He 
was on the " Black List " of the Commune for arrest, 
and arrest then meant death. 

As the siege progressed, the bombardment became 
more and more severe. The beautiful avenue of 
the Champs Elysees was like a city of the dead. 
Not a living creature was to be seen upon it for 
hours. From time to time a man would emerge 
cautiously from a side street, gaze anxiously up the 
avenue, then start on a run to cross it. But the 
" insatiate thirst of gold " is stronger than the fear 
of death ; and, at the worst of the bombardment, 
men and boys were to be seen lurking near the Arch, 
and darting upon an exploding shell to secure its 
fragments while they were still too hot to hold. A 
large business was done in these fragments after the 
siege, as well as in the unexploded shells. They 
were sold as relics ; and the Parisian shop - keepers 



276 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

mounted them as clocks, fenders, inkstands, pen- 
holders, and other articles de Paris. 

A battery of immense strength was at length 
erected at Montretout, near St. Cloud. It was prob- 
ably the most powerful battery ever erected in the 
world. It opened upon the gate of the Point du 
Jour, and in a few days the scene of devastation in 
that quarter was fearful. Not a house was left 
standing, scarcely a wall. Bodies of soldiers of the 
National Guard lay unburied among the ruins. The 
fire was too hot for their comrades to approach 
them. 

. In the mean time dissension reigned among the 
Communists. A new Committee of Public Safety 
was appointed. They arrested Cluseret, their Min- 
ister of War, as they had already arrested Lullier. 
They accused him of treason, and it would have 
gone hard with him had the Commune continued 
much longer in power. They said that " a hideous 
plot had been discovered," but that the guilty were 
known, and " their punishment should be exemplary 
as their crime was unparalleled." They announced 
that if the Commune fell, they would fire the city, 
and its beauty and its pride should be buried with 
them. They wrote forcibly, those fellows! Had 



CAPTURE OF PARIS. 277 

they fought with as much vigor as they wrote, the 
world would at least have respected their courage, 
instead of pronouncing them as cowardly as they 
were cruel. But their career of crime and folly was 
drawing to a close. 

One day a citizen of Paris, a civil engineer, was 
taking his afternoon walk. As he approached one 
of the gates, not far from Auteuil, he was surprised 
to find no l^ational Guard on duty. He kept on, 
and came to the fortifications. There w^as not a de- 
fender in sight, while the French troops lay outside 
under cover watching for some one to fire at. Why 
they had not discovered the absence of the enemy 
can only be accounted for by the general inefficien- 
cy into which the French army had fallen. The 
engineer raised his white handkerchief on his cane, 
and when he saw that it was observed, quietly walk- 
ed through the ruins of the work, crossed tlie fosse, 
and asked the officer in command why on earth he 
did not come in ; there was a gate, and no one to de- 
fend it. It occurred to the officer that it might be 
as well to do so ; that perhaps that was what he was 
there for: so he marched in with his company, 
and Paris was taken. It was rather an anticlimax ! 
After a delay of months, and a fierce bombardment, 



278 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

to enter Paris on tlie invitation of a citizen taking 
his afternoon walk ! It was never known how that 
gate came to be left nnguarded. It was probably 
owing to dissensions in the Commune. The battal- 
ion holding it had not been relieved, as they expect- 
ed to be; so they voted that they would not stay 
any longer, shouldered their muskets, and marched 
off. 

The troops entered on the 22d of May. Once 
fairly in, the work was comparatively easy; but 
they proceeded with great caution. It was said that 
Gallifet urged that he should take his cavalry, and 
scour the city. I believe that he could have done 
it on that day, for the Communists were thoroughly 
demoralized ; but it was thought to be too hazard- 
ous an operation for cavalry. The next morning the 
troops advanced unopposed as far as the Place de la 
Concorde. I have the word of an American friend, 
whose apartment looked upon the Place, that the 
strons: barricade which connected the Rue St. Flo- 
rentin with the Tuileries Gardens was then unde- 
fended, and that if the troops had advanced prompt- 
ly they could have carried it without resistance ; but 
while they sent forward their skirmishers, who found 
no one to skirmish with, and advanced with the ut- 



CAPTURE OF PARIS. 279 

most caution, a battery, followed by a battalion of 
the National Guard, galloped up from the Hotel de 
Yille. The troops then began regular approaches. 
They entered the adjoining houses, passing from 
roof to roof, and occupying the upper windows, till 
finally they commanded the barricade, and fired 
down upon its defenders. They filled barrels with 
sand, and rolled them toward the barrier. Each 
barrel covered two skirmishers, who alternately rolled 
the barrel and picked off the defenders of the bar- 
ricade if they ventured to show themselves. My in- 
formant saw a young and apparently good-looking 
woman spring upon the barricade, a red flag in her 
hand, and wave it defiantly at the troops. She was 
instantly shot dead. When the work was carried, an 
old woman was led out to be shot. She was placed 
with her back to the wall of the Tuileries Gardens, 
and, as the firing party leveled their pieces, she put 
her fingers to her nose, and worked them after the 
manner of the defiant in all ages, or, as Dickens ex- 
presses it, "as if she were grinding an imaginary 
coffee-mill." 

Many of their strongest positions were abandoned 
by the insurgents, having been turned by the troops. 
Those that resisted fell one after the other, carried 



28o CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 



in the way I have described. Indeed, I can see no 
possibility of a barricade holding out unless the ad- 
jacent houses are held too. That at the head of the 
Kue St. Florentin was of great strength, a regular 
work ; for the Communists had several excellent 
engineers in their ranks, graduates of the military 
schools, men who had been disappointed under tlie 
Government in not meeting with the promotion 
they thought they deserved, and so joined the Com- 
mune. The ditch of the barricade St. Florentin was 
about sixteen feet deep. It made a convenient bury- 
ing-ground. The dead Communists, men and wom- 
en, were huddled into it, quicklime added, and the 
fosse filled up. As the pleasure - seeker enters the 
Kue de Kivoli from the Place de la Concorde he 
passes over the bodies of forty or fifty miserable 
wretches — most of them scoundrels of the deepest 
dye — but among them some wild fanatics, and some 
poor victims of the Commune, forced unwillingly 
into its ranks. 

Much must be pardoned to soldiers heated with 
battle, and taught to believe every prisoner they 
take an incarnate devil. But making all allowances, 
there is no excuse for the wholesale butcheries com- 
mitted by the troops. A friend of mine saw a house 



CRUELTIES OF TROOPS. 281 

in the Boulevard Malesherbes visited by a squad of 
soldiers. They asked the concierge if there were 
any Communists concealed there. She answered 
that there were none. They searched the house, and 
found one. They took him out and shot him, and 
then shot her. One of the attaches of the Legation 
saw in the Avenue d'Autin the bodies of six chil- 
dren, the eldest apparently not over fourteen, shot to 
death as petroleuses, suspected of carrying petrole- 
um to fire the houses. There was no trial of any 
kind, no drum-head court-martial even, such as the 
laws of civilized warfare require under all circum- 
stances. Any lieutenant ordered prisoners to be 
shot as the fancy took him, and no questions were 
asked. Many an innocent spectator perished in 
those days. An English officer had a narrow escape. 
He approached a crowd of prisoners halted for a 
moment on the Champs Elysees ; and when they 
moved on, the guard roped him in with the rest, and 
would not listen to a word of explanation. Happily 
he was able to attract the attention of the Marquis 
de Gallifet and explain his position. An officer of 
high rank who was escorting a batch of prisoners to 
Yersailles is said to have halted in the Bois, ridden 
down the column, picked out those whose faces he 



282 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

particularly disliked, and had them shot on the spot. 
The number of lives taken after the defeat of the 
Commune can never be accurately known ; but it 
was generally computed at the time to exceed the 
number of those lost in both sieges. 

Petroleum next became the madness of the hour. 
Every woman carrying a bottle was suspected of be- 
ing 2i jpetroleuse. The most absurd stories were told 
of its destructive properties. Organized bands of 
women were said to be patrolling the streets armed 
with bottles of petroleum. This they threw into the 
cellar windows, and then set fire to it. The win- 
dows were barred, and the cellars in Paris are uni- 
versally built in stone and concrete. How they ef- 
fected their purpose under these circumstances is not 
readily seen. If this was their modus oj[>erand% they 
were the most inexpert incendiaries ever known. 
The Commune should blush for it? pupils in crime. 
I do not believe in the petroleum story, and I do not 
think that one-third of the population believed in it. 
Yet such was the power of suspicion in those days, 
and such the distrust of one's neighbor, that every 
staid and sober housekeeper bricked up his cellar 
windows, and for weeks in the beautiful summer 
weather not an open window was to be seen on the 



INC END I A RISM. 283 



lower stories. Ko doubt every second man thought 
it a great piece of folly thus to shut out light and 
air from his lower stories ; but if he had not done 
as his neighbors did, he would have been denounced 
by them as 2, jpetroleux. 

The leaders of the Commune, as I have said, had 
sworn that, if the city were taken, they would blow 
up the public buildings, and bury every thing in a 
common ruin. Happily, their good -will exceeded 
their ability. They had no time to execute their 
atrocious projects. They burned the Tuileries, the 
Finances, the Hotel de Yille, the Comptes, the Ho- 
tel of the Legion of Honor, and a small portion of 
the Palais Royal. The only irreparable loss was 
that of the Hotel de Yille. The Finances, the 
Comptes, and the Legion of Honor had no imper- 
ishable historical associations connected with them. 
The Tuileries w^as an old and inconvenient building. 
The Emperor had already rebuilt it in part. Plans 
for reconstructing the whole building had been pre- 
pared and still exist, and nothing but the want of 
money had prevented their being carried into execu- 
tion long before. 

I do not propose to dwell upon the horrors of the 
nights of the 23d and 24th of May, when all Paris 



284 CAMP, COURT, AND SIEGE. 

appeared to be in flames. The view from the high 
ground upon which the Legation stands was very 
striking. A pall of smoke hung over the city by 
day, and pillars of fire lighted it by night. One of 
the most painful features of those days was the pro- 
longed suspense. We did not know which of the 
magnificent monuments of Paris were in flames ; for 
the troops permitted no approach, and the most 
startling rumors were current. The Louvre was at 
one time in danger, but happily escaped. 

I pass over, too, the cruelties of the march of the 
prisoners to Yersailles, and the sufferings they there 
endured. These things are written in the annals 
of the times, and no good can be done by reviving 
them. Beautiful France has been sorely tried with 
revolutions. Let us hope that she has seen the last. 

In the hotel of the German Embassy at Paris may 
be seen several articles of value, mostly Sevres and 
Dresden china, which the German Government de- 
sires to present to Mr. Washburne, General Eead, 
and some few other officers of the United States, in 
token of its gratitude for services rendered to Ger- 
man subjects during the war. These articles can not 
be received without the permission of Congress. 
The House promptly passed the joint resolution. 



PJ^ESENTS FROM EMPEROR. 285 

The Senate still hesitates. Mr. Fox, formerly Assist- 
ant Secretary of the Navy, and the officers who ac- 
companied him to Russia, were permitted to receive 
such presents as "the Emperor might see fit to 
give them." Are Mr. Washborne and his subor- 
dinates, who certainly rendered some services, and 
suffered some hardships, less entitled to receive this 
permission than Mr. Fox and his companions, who 
took a monitor to Cronstadt ? 



THE END. 



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Transcript. 

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